Chess
by TwoTrees
Summary: Hogwarts hosts an intraschool Chess Championship. Chaos ensues, enmity blooms at every corner and several friendships are cracking under the pressure. Can the Hogwartians escape this with their bodies, minds and hearts intact? HGDM, based on musical Chess
1. The Story of Wizard Chess

**Authors' Note**: No, it's not a mistake, there really are two authors to this story. And those two authors would like you to note that the story is based on the "Chess Complete Cast Album". The storyline is based on that musical, and we have followed the order of songs on the aforementioned album.

**Disclaimer**: All the characters, places, items, and everything else from "Harry Potter" belongs to J. K. Rowling. The plot and lyrics of "Chess" belong to Tim Rice, Björn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson. The modified lyrics and plot are ours, just as this story, and our infinite love and worship of both "Harry Potter" and "Chess".

---------------------------------------

**Chess**

**The Story of Wizard Chess **

_Each game of chess means there's one less  
Variation yet to be played  
Each day got through means one or two  
Less mistakes remain to be made_

"My dear students, professors, ghosts, and other creatures, I would like to welcome you all to another year at Hogwarts," Dumbledore spoke. "I know you can't wait to start with your studies, and take up new subjects..."

"Did he have you write his speech for him?" Ron chuckled into her girlfriend's ear.

"Shh!" Hermione admonished and pushed him away.

"But this year we have something very special planned out in Hogwarts."

"If this is another ball, he can shove it..." Ron began grumpily.

"A HOGWARTS CHESS TOURNAMENT!!!"

"What?" Ron's head snapped up and away from all the delicious food in front of him. "Did he say chess? Did he say chess?"

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Did he say chess?" Ron asked a bit louder, when he received no answer.

"Yes, Mister Weasley, I did indeed say chess. I feel that now, after the war, something is needed to cheer us all up, something other than the fascinating art of studying, something to bring us all together in the spirit of friendship and toleration. Even thought this entertainment is in the form of a contest, I ask you not to let your want to win overshadow the bonds of civility and good nature towards others, and although each victory gains your house 10 points, and the championship of the whole tournament 1000 housepoints, let us use this opportunity to get new friends and bring all four Houses together in peace and friendship. Because friendship is priceless."

Ron, who had spent most of the speech, especially all those House-unity and goodwill parts glaring at the Slytherin table like the rest of Gryffindors, broke the gaze with a fifth year Slytherin who had happened to be his glaring partner, and turned to Hermione, who looked angry for some reason.

"One thousand House points for the overall winner? That's fantastic!"

"I will let the Headmistress explain you the rest," Dumbledore nodded, and sat to his chair, observing the students from his vantage point on the wall by the teacher's table. With his portrait taking up new residence in the Great Hall, and twinkling at students during every mealtime, it was a bit easier to forget the war that had claimed his life and many others.

With a nod to the portrait of Albus Dumbledore, Headmistress of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry turned towards the body of students and frowned.

"SILENCE!" Minerva McGonagall boomed over the large hall, and pointedly ignored the faint chuckle from the direction of the previous speaker.

"As was said, this year Hogwarts hosts a inner-school championship of chess. Everyone who wants to participate has the chance to sign up in the course of the next seven days starting tomorrow. After all those interested have rolled themselves in, the games will start. Each person will be paired up with someone, preferrably of another House so that you can spend time with people you usually don't and promote inter-House unity..."

Here McGonagall paused for a fraction of second to give the leering Snape a sharp and evil glare, then continued.

"Whoever wins the match moves on to the next round, and so forth. If the game is tied, both persons are given a new partner; if one student ties three games in a row, they will be eliminated from the tournament. Each victory gains your House 10 points. The games go on until there are only two finalists left, between whom a grand final takes place. The winner of the final will become the Champion of Hogwarts, have their picture and interview published in the Daily Prophet, receive a special invitation to the Ministry of Magic Spring Ball, gain a special school award, and have their complete biography added into "Hogwarts, A History". In addition to this everlasting fame and glory, the House of the winner will also receive one thousand points. The detailed rules and instructions of signing up to the tournament will appear on your common-room boards tomorrow. With all the questions concerning the competition, turn towards myself or your Head of House.

Now, speaking of other matters, I expect this little tournament of ours not to hamper with your schoolwork..."

As McGonagall went on to talk about matters of more importance, Ron tuned her out, and gave a dreamy sigh. Forever fame and glory plus one thousand House points — finally he was able to do something great and noble and distinguished for the House of Gryffindor, something that would go down in history and have people remember him for a long time, and not as another Weasley, but as the Champion of Hogwarts.

"I can't see what this is all about," Hermione ranted after the meal on their way to their tower. "Now all the people will be excited about another silly game and no one will take time to prepare for the NEWTs!"

This was Ron and Harry's time to roll eyes, which they did. But as this chess tournament was a most excellent excuse not to study, they kept their tongues and let her rant, hoping to persuade her to lend them her notes later on.

---

The next day both Harry and Ron signed themselves up for the tournament, and were in the middle of a practicing game when the door burst open and in stormed a livid Hermione, her hair seemingly sizzling with electricity, red blotches of anger on her cheeks, her lips moving in a silent rant.

Noticing her friend and boyfriend in front of the fireplace, she rushed up to them, grabbed Ron by his collar, ignored his yelp of surprise and fear, and hissed at him.

"You will teach me how to play chess!"

"Wha?" Ron was certain he had misheard.

Letting him go, she pushed him back to the sofa and took a seat at his side, forcing herself calm and repeating her order.

"You will teach me how to play chess."

"Why?" Harry asked, shocked and surprised just as his friend.

"Because Terry Boot asked me today at the library whether I was going to participate," she explained, getting angry once again.

"So?" Ron didn't understand.

"And when I said 'no', he was kind enough to point out that chess was a complicated game and only those **smart** enough can handle it. I'll show him smart enough!" Hermione fumed.

Harry chuckled but quickly disguised it as a cough.

"So, teach me to play," Hermione demanded.

"Well… I…"

"Please?" she added, giving him her sweetest smile.

"Sure!" he agreed at once, unable to resist her.

"Well?" she asked after a while, when Ron was still giving her a besotted glare.

"Oh yes. First, before we can go to the practical side, you must know the most important things about wizard chess… starting with a bit of its history…"

"History… you?"

"Quite much is known  
Of early days of chess including this quite clear report  
That many hundred years ago two wizards fought  
As rabid dogs for one last bone…"

"I can imagine that," Hermione quipped.

"Their armies died  
And quite soon there was no one left to battle out their will  
They didn't duel in fear that they might get killed.  
More fighters they just had to find."

"Cowards."

"No humans left,  
Instead a piece of wood  
With the help of craft  
And magic, wooden soldiers looked quite good."

"Boys and their toys."

"With these crafted knights  
They went on with their fight  
Each day and each night  
Wooden men warred, wizards enjoyed the sight."

"Let someone else do their dirty job."

"But as land was ruined after battle  
Deciding to deal with that matter  
A special board they created for their war  
Where soldiers marched  
And fought and battled, each other chopped and shattered  
And thus the game was born."

"Finally someone who cares about nature."

"Later when war was through  
They played that game on as sports  
And introduced to others who  
Came to like and love it,  
And told their friends."

"Boys and their toys."

"You already said it," Harry remarked.

"So, it's worth saying again."

"And then when Merlin born was some time later  
He helped the game be even greater  
Making Wizard chess a must."

"A must?"

"A must for everyone to learn."

"Oh."

"Once in the hands  
And in the minds of all the wizards in Medieval times  
Around the world played by the good and evil guys  
The game was loved in every land."

"In every single land?"

"New wizards thought  
Ways to improve the board  
Squares of black and white  
Were a beautiful and lovely sight."

"Ooh, pretty!"

"King and queen and rook,  
And bishop, knight and pawn  
All took on the look  
We know today, a modern game was born."

"Boys and thei…"

"Oh, come on, Hermione, we're not that bad."

"Shut up, Harry, Ron is speaking."

"With success  
We see the game that started once as war between two lords  
But soon got fascinating and captured them all  
Reach every corner of the globe with nation  
Squaring up to nation to determine, no holds barred,  
Who owns, who made, who will parade  
The champion of chess."

"Now teach me! Teach me! Teach me!"

"Calm down, Hermione. Here, take my seat…"

As Harry stood up from his armchair, Hermione took a seat by the chess board, peering at it with lots of curiosity and elation. She was really starting to like that game, and she hadn't even played yet. It was just that anything that made Ron take an interest in history simply had to be fascinating.

---

The following weeks flowed by quite as always, except they were nothing but usual.

"I won!" Ron exclaimed, jumping into the Gryffindor common room. Well, that was usual. As it was, Ron always won.

"Damned!" Harry cursed, sinking into an armchair by the fire.

"Who did you lose to?" Hermione asked, not raising her glance from the Transfiguration homework in front of her. If there was something Hermione was good at, well, she was good at almost everything, but one of her specialties was coping with much work in small period of time. Despite her last year at Hogwarts, the ridiculous amount of homework they were given, the NEWTs looming nearer and nearer by each day, his boyfriend Ron who demanded some attention, she still managed to learn chess and improve her skills at it.

"Ernie Macmillan."

"I have a game with him this Friday."

"Good luck," Harry wished.

---

Time passed by, matches were won and matches were lost, House points were gained and House points were lost (when people were too engrossed in the competition to do their homework), parties were held, and detentions were given, Hermione got beaten by Daphne Greengrass which drove her into a horrible mood (people knew to keep away from her), and terrorize everyone around her, at least until Ron smashed the Slytherin girl and ended up with an utterly grateful bushy-haired bookworm in his arms ("Well, at least I showed Boot who of us is the smart one!"), and the rubies and emeralds in the House points' hourglasses were in noticeably larger quantity than the others, although quite equal to each other.

And the evil glares Snape and McGonagall gave each other became sharper and sharper.

Technically, Minerva shouldn't have been the Head of Gryffindor any longer, since she was the Headmistress now. Technically, she wasn't. Technically, the Head of Gryffindor was now Sybill Trelawney. But no one really cared much about the technical side of things. And thus, McGonagall was still the Head of Gryffindor.

---

It was late November when Dumbledore made the announcement.

"The School's Chess Unity Management, also known as the S.C.U.M. which I have the honor of being president announces that the final of the Hogwarts Chess Tournament will be organized by the House of Ravenclaw. Ronald Weasley, Champion of Gryffindor will meet Draco Malfoy, Champion of Slytherin in civility and friendship…"

This time Hermione heartily took part in the Gryffindor versus Slytherin exchange of killer glares, trying to stare a hole into the raven-haired head of Daphne Greengrass.

"The first player to achieve six victories will be declared champion. The first game will begin on December 3rd."

_Each game of chess means there's one less  
Variation yet to be played  
Each day got through means one or two  
Less mistakes remain to be made _


	2. Ravenclaw

**Chess**

**Ravenclaw**

This last announcement created a storm of discontent amongst the students.

"What! Why those teachers' pets—" came from Gryffindor table, though it didn't manage to drown the cheering of the Ravenclaws.

"They're biased!" screeched Malfoy.

"You're biased!" shouted Ernie to the teachers. "Why not Hufflepuff?"

But all the protestations were nothing compared to the glee of the Ravenclaws.

"If we're not in the final, at least we can organize the event," someone from their table chirped happily.

A cheerful song was quickly started by the students of the respective House, which earned them a lot of evil glares from the otherwise friendly Hufflepuffs, and moans and numerous conjured-up earmuffs from Slytherin and Gryffindor.

"O light the heart  
That lingers in Ravenclaw!  
Ravenclaw! The House no  
Professor would ever ditch  
So witty  
Highly recommended  
Is this sweet West Tower  
Mental and physical power!" they sang together to the beaming professor Flitwick and a strained smile from Sprout.

"This isn't fair!" Susan shouted, cutting off the song for a moment.

"SILENCE!" McGonagall bellowed again. "The decision of the organizing House is not to be protested! It was decided by the Board of Governors, and therefore—" but she couldn't even finish her sentence.

"The Board has smiled  
And blessed is Ravenclaw  
Ravenclaw! There are no  
Sharper minds out to be found  
Such brightness!  
Take the time to test us  
We'll give you a welcome that's perfectly sensible  
For then we are sure why we're out  
Right now we're the hosts, though we used to be competitors  
The chess-men keep bouncing around!" the whole House bellowed.

Terry Boot jumped up on the table in a quite Ernie-like manner, bowed to the whole hall, and said, "Speaking as one of the school prefects I don't mind hosting your patience and wits."

"Of course they don't mind," Susan whispered to Hannah, as they gave a small unenthusiastic applause to the Ravenclaw House together with the professors and those students from the other tables who had removed their earmuffs.

---

This night the Gryffindor students found it hard to go to sleep. The first match of the final would be in three days already, and they knew their chances of winning were great — everyone in the school knew how Ron had won against McGonagall when he was still a first year student. Now, six years later, he was bound to be even better, and none of the Gryffindors could take Malfoy's attempts seriously. They were all convinced that he had got that far only with bribe.

But that wasn't the reason why they couldn't sleep. The actual reason was the incessant singing coming to them from the western side of the castle, the Ravenclaw Tower, where partying had yet to stop before the preparations started — they had to make their common room accessible for all, and fitting for a chess competition with most of the school watching.

But right now they were singing so that it echoed through the castle and interfered with the sleeping time of the Gryffindors in their tower.

_Oh I get high when I saunter by the book-shelves of Ravenclaw  
Bound-by-books Ravenclaw  
Flourishing to a fault  
The thick volumes, the heavy quires  
The old and foreign books  
I'd have to be carried away to call a halt!  
Oh I feel great in this bouncing state  
O hail to the Ravenclaw  
Hearty hale Ravenclaw  
Any objections? Nein!_

"I object!" Harry said from his bed, trying to muffle the sound with his pillow.

"Oh, shut up," Ron complained from behind his curtains. "I almost managed to block them out of my mind already, and now you woke me up again."

"So?" Seamus pondered. "It's only fair that you're up as well if we can't sleep."

"But I have to be rested to compete with Malfoy in three days!" Ron bellowed.

"Calm down!"

"Wonder why Flitwick doesn't tell them to shut up? It's long past curfew now."

---

What the sleepy boys in Gryffindor dorms didn't know was that Flitwick was currently Magic-ordering butterbeers for his House from the Three Broomsticks in the West Tower, and he heartily joined in with the rhymes.

"Where reading up will turn you on  
We're a knowledgeable horde  
Get out your get up and look to the chess board  
It's living your life in a book by Rowena Ravenclaw!

"O sad the soul  
Who passes by Ravenclaw  
Ravenclaw! So far no  
Soul has ever passed us by  
They love us  
Why not stay forever?  
Oh so many reasons why  
All those in favor say "Aye"  
Aye!"

---

The next three days passed as if in a haze. All that people talked about was the chess final, and Hermione was finally happy something had managed to get people's mind off Quidditch. There wasn't a person in the school who hadn't got at least one book on Wizard chess; most had also managed to purchase volumes on Muggle chess tactics. Ron was bombarded with suggestions of how to beat Malfoy everywhere he went, and the crowd of Slytherins surrounding Malfoy at all times hinted such might have been the case with him, too.

Both finalists were constantly running late for lessons, because it became increasingly harder for them to move around the castle. But they didn't lose much with missing the lessons; the professors were almost helpless against the growing anticipation.

The worst were definitely the Charms lessons. Professor Flitwick had decided it would be fun to teach them to charm a Muggle chess set into a Wizards' chess. The frequent outbursts of the now almost official Ravenclaw song didn't improve the overall lack of concentration in the lessons.

"So sing a song  
Let's hear it for Ravenclaw  
Ravenclaw! Soprano  
Alto, tenor, bass agree  
We're wholesome  
What a happy haven  
This is a place where your test grades go skywards  
The losers here haven't a chance  
From first year to seventh the natural brightness  
Is fighting with stupid's advance."

Usually Flitwick just smiled at his students when the song broke loose; sometimes he jumped up on his table and conducted it with his wand.

And thus the three days passed.

On the night before the first game representatives of both competing parties were allowed to the Ravenclaw Tower for them to approve of the match conditions and suggest any last minute changes in the appearance of the arena.

"No, Harry, you can't come!" Ron told him for the umpteenth time. "McGonagall told me that I can only take my second with me, and Hermione is clearly better at chess than you."

Hermione beamed at that praise, but Harry looked miserable.

"You said that we always go together everywhere!" he protested.

"That was in the war, Harry," Hermione said. "But this is not war. This is chess. It's just a game."

"Yeah, just a game," Harry muttered darkly as his two best friends turned away and left the common room.

The Headmistress was waiting for them just outside the portrait hole.

"Finally! Mr. Weasley, what took you so long?" Without waiting for an answer McGonagall led them towards the west side of the school.

"I think we were a bit harsh on Harry," Hermione whispered to Ron as they trailed on behind McGonagall.

"No, we were not. He's just jealous."

"Harry, jealous of attention? I don't think so," Hermione said with a hint of laughter.

"Of course he is! Didn't you see how he looked at us? I think he's more jealous of you, though," Ron spit.

"You're ridiculous!" Hermione snorted, and before she could continue they stopped in front of a window that opened to a beautiful sunset.

Two people were already waiting for them there. Malfoy had a usual smirk on his face as he looked arrogantly down on Hermione, for Ron was half a head taller than him. Snape was hovering a pace behind Malfoy with a kind of malicious contempt on his face.

"You're late," he said.

"We—" Ron started, but shut up when a sharp pain in his toe told him that someone had hit him with their foot.

"I had other, more important business to attend to, Severus," McGonagall stated stonily. "But now, if you don't mind, I'd rather get this done as fast as possible. Chess championship," she told the password to the window.

The window clicked open and McGonagall was the first to climb in.

"Ah, welcome!" little professor Flitwick squeaked in delight as they all climbed through the window and looked around.

Hermione noticed that the House looked nothing like Gryffindor common room. There were fireplaces along the inner wall of the room, but right now those were covered with chequered black-and-white plaques. The room was definitely enlarged, and the windows on the outer walls were hidden by rows of chairs rising almost to the ceiling of the room. In the middle there was a chess board, a high-backed uncomfortable looking chair on either side, the chessmen taking a nap currently, slightly snoring. There were three wizard cameras hovering around the board, probably to produce a broadcast for those students to watch who couldn't fit into the Ravenclaw common room. There were no students around; Hermione supposed they had been banished to their dormitories to let the champions get a clear overview of the set.

All the time that Hermione looked around, professor Flitwick had been explaining the details behind the setting and the proceedings of the matches. He finished with a smile, saying,

"So come to us and feel the force  
The winner is welcomed at our House, of course!"

---

When they left they could hear the song picking up pace behind them, again.

_Oh I get high when I saunter by the book-shelves of Ravenclaw  
Bound-by-books Ravenclaw  
Flourishing to a fault  
The thick volumes, the heavy quires  
The old and foreign books  
I'd have to be carried away to call a halt!  
Once in a while the professors smile on little old Ravenclaw  
Humble shy Ravenclaw  
Suddenly hits the press  
And I report with all the pride  
And joy that I possess  
Most of the school and outside have our address  
Our little House will be rife with games of chess!_

"So, aren't you happy to be my second instead of Harry?" Ron asked Hermione as they made their way back, just to stifle the never-ending singing.

"Well, I am better at chess than him," Hermione said cautiously.

"Not that much, though," Ron said in an offhand way. "It's not like you could teach me much, seeing as I was your teacher…"

"You're conceited!" Hermione replied, obviously hurt.

"Hah, I'm just better at chess than you, that's all. No need to get touchy!"

Hermione huffed and sped up, almost running through the corridors to the portrait of the Fat Lady.

Ron caught up with her just as she was about to climb in. Form somewhere further away they could hear the song,

_Get out your get up and look to the chess board  
It's living your life in a book by Rowena Ravenclaw_!

"Hermione, what's wrong? All I said was that I'm the Gryffindor champion…"

But the cheering of his Housemates overpowered his voice and everything he had wanted to say to Hermione was instantly forgotten when he was bombarded with questions.

"What was it like?"

"You'll win, won't you?"

"Slytherin hasn't got a chance!"

"Chess is the best!"

Ron smiled happily at all the attention he was receiving. He sighed exasperatedly.

"What a scene! What a joy!  
What a lovely sight  
When my game is the big sensation!  
Has the mob's sporting taste  
Altered overnight?  
Have they found new sophistication?

"Not yet! They just want to see  
If the nice guy beats the bum  
If it's Green – Red  
And the pressure's sky-high  
They all come…"

"Heh, which are you? The nice guy or the bum?" Hermione spat maliciously, rounding up on Ron again. The rest of the Gryffindors retreated a bit, leaving them some room.

"Hermione, don't—" Ron started, but Hermione had already turned her back to him and sped up the staircase to the girls dormitories.

Ron took a miserable look around, but a small smile appeared on his lips at the sight of the anxious faces surrounding him.

"You can raise all you want  
If you raise the roof  
Scream and shout and the gate increases  
Break the rules — break the bank  
I'm the living proof  
They don't care how I move my pieces!

"I know I'm the best there is  
But all they want is a show  
Well that's all right — I'll be glad to win for

"Gryffindor! Gryffindor!"

---

The cheering at the Gryffindor common room was as wild as that at the other side of the castle, where professor Flitwick had joined his students again in the last minute preparations for the upcoming match. Putting the finishing touches to the room there wasn't one amongst them who wasn't singing.

_Oh I get high when I saunter by the bookshelves of Ravenclaw  
Bound-by-books Ravenclaw  
Flourishing to a fault  
The thich volumes, the heavy quires  
The old and foreign books  
I'd have to be carried away to call a halt!  
Oh I feel great in this bouncing state  
O hail to the Ravenclaw  
Hearty hale Ravenclaw  
Any objections? Nein!  
Where reading up will turn you on  
We're a knowledgeable horde  
Get out your get up and look to the chess board  
It's living your life in a book by Rowena Ravenclaw!  
Now for the brains  
We put the ice into paradise, we are the salt of the earth  
Sound as a bell  
Check out the work load  
And check out the exams  
Because you are rooks!  
Check into our notebooks  
And look  
How many nights  
It took!_

* * *

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	3. Where I Want to Be

**Note: **Remember, the original words of the songs are reached through a link on our profile. :)

-----

**Chess**

**Where I Want To Be**

While Gryffindors and Ravenclaws were singing in celebration, and Hufflepuffs brooding for not being chosen as the hosts of the chess final, down in the dungeons Snape was nervously pacing up and down in his office, while Draco Malfoy sat lounging in the chair in front of the fireplace, staring pensively into the flames.

It seemed that Snape was a bit more anxious to win the game than Malfoy himself, but that was actually no surprise. Of course Malfoy wanted to win, he wanted to win against Gryffindor and against Weasley, but ever since the start of the war, many things had taken up a whole new perspective in his mind. After all, when his life had been in danger every second of every day, things like Quidditch Cup were bound to sink to the background. And now, after the war and their return to Hogwarts, he found it hard to go back to the life he had been leading before.

Sometimes, it didn't seem worth all the trouble.

Snape had stopped his pacing and was now giving his champion an evil glare, not only because he didn't seem to be paying attention, but these last few days he had been giving evil glares to everybody. This was his chance to bring the Slytherin House out of the pile of rubbish it had been dumped into during the war, back into the light of pride and fame and glory. And he was **not** going to miss it.

"That boy is utterly mad," he said when his glare was acknowledged at last. "Believe me, Draco, you're playing a lunatic."

While he had been too busy with his own games and improving his strategy to attend Weasley's matches, he had sent others to pay attention and report back to him, also interrogated those who had had the chance to lose to Weasley.

And all of them had come back bearing the same news; some had even managed to take a couple of photos.

"That's the problem," he replied at last. "He's a brilliant lunatic and you can't tell which way he'll jump - like his game he's impossible to analyse - you can't dissect him, predict him - which of course means he's not a lunatic at all."

He hated calling Weasley brilliant, even though that adjective was followed by 'lunatic', but by everything he had heard and seen, there were some things he couldn't deny any more. Weasley was poor, ugly, freckled, Gryffindor, poor, ugly, red-haired, poor, stupid, ugly and poor, but when it came to chess – that he was good at. And he really didn't need all those reports from his spies for that, after all, Weasley **had** made it to the final.

"What we've just seen's a pathetic display  
From a boy who's beginning to crack  
He's afraid - he isn't as good as he wants us to think  
He knows he'll get smacked."

Straightening himself up a bit, Malfoy fixed his companion with a sharp gaze of his own. What was he trying to do? Snape was not stupid after all, and even if he hadn't been present to some of those matches won by Weasley, he still couldn't deny the fact that the Gryffindor had made it so far already.

"Nonsense!  
Why do my allies  
Always want to believe  
Those silly rumours..."

"My friend, please relax  
We're all on your side  
You know how you need us –"

Malfoy looked away pointedly. Whenever Snape called someone his friend, things were not good for that said person. And even though there had been a time he had really needed him, that time ended with Voldemort's demise, and now he was able to become independent once again. Because if there was one thing Malfoy couldn't stand, besides red-haired and freckled Gryffindors, it was being called dependent.

"I don't need my army of so-called 'advisors'  
And 'helpers' to tell me  
The guy who's revitalised chess single-handed  
Is more or less out of his brain  
When it's very clear he's sane."

_At least when it comes to chess, _Malfoy added mentally.

"Listen, we don't underestimate Gryffindor -  
We won't get caught in that trap  
After all, winning or losing reflects on us all…"

"Oh don't give me that crap!  
I win - no one else does  
And I take the rap if I lose.

"Admit it, you're just playing your little game of rivalry with McGonagall," Malfoy added.

"You are going to win to bring Slytherin fame and glory!"

"I'm going to win to bring myself fame and glory!"

For a moment there, Malfoy thought that Snape would pull his wand out on him, but he was still quite safe – he was their champion after all, and no one injures their champion one day before the big game.

And Snape did make no attempt to curse him. Instead, he simply smiled, which was about hundred times worse.

"But you are right about one thing," he said in his oily voice, the one he used to make promises (aka threaten people). "You **will** take the rap if you lose. You certainly will."

Draco repressed a shudder at that. Snape was one of those people that were not just every bit as nasty and dangerous as they looked like, but in certain situations ten times as much. And after the match… well, who cares if the loser ends up in the Hospital Wing for a few weeks. Or months.

"It's not quite that simple  
All Hogwarts is watching  
We're all on display  
We're not merely sportsmen…"

"Oh please don't start spouting that old party line  
Yes I know it's your job but  
Just get out and get me a chess-playing second  
In mere sixteen hours we begin  
That is if you want to win!"

Snape grimaced. He knew quite well that all those silly rumours about Weasley winning only through bribe were false (because he was way too poor and way too Gryffindor to do something like that). He knew Weasley was a substantial rival, and that he had good chances to win, especially if his player stayed as indifferent about the game as he seemed now. So he just had to give the match a subtle push in the right direction.

"Wanting's not sufficient - we have to know, we have to make sure. All Gryffindors have a weakness, and his is that bookworm; take her and you win the game!"

Draco cringed. If Snape wanted him to seduce Granger, he was losing it for certain. Of course, it also meant something else.

"So you think I can't win otherwise?" he scoffed. If Snape was resorting to measures that extreme, it meant he was getting desperate. And that meant he thought they had no chance to achieve an honest victory.

Funny as it may have seemed, although it really wasn't, Draco couldn't recall ever wanting or managing to win without his little dirty tricks. But this time it was different. This time he wanted to win not only to trash Gryffindor, but also to prove that he was indeed better than them.

"I'm not saying that - I'm just making certain - and she's intelligent... then there's her heritage – Muggle-born and all that."

"And what does that have to do with anything?" Malfoy raised an eyebrow. "You want me to seduce her because she is a Mudblood?"

"It would do our cause no harm. And don't say that word – this castle has too many eyes and ears. You don't want to get charged with instigation of public hostility, or something like that."

"Our cause?" Draco inquired.

"Our cause to bring the House of Slytherin back into good light in the eyes of all the important figures."

"Whenever has Slytherin been in good light?"

He left the question hang in the air for a while, before standing up and walking towards the door.

"I'm a chess player, Professor Snape - you go and play these other games!"

"What's wrong with you, Draco!" he heard the other man hiss. "You used to like all these devious tricks in the past. What has happened to you?"

"The war," he said quietly and left.

---

Once back in Slytherin common room, he swiftly ordered everyone out with the excuse of needing peace and quiet to concentrate before the big day.

"Will you smash him, thrash him, and bash him for me?" Pansy asked with a revengeful smile on her face. Her first game of chess had been against Weasley, and she didn't appreciate being demolished in five minutes.

She also didn't appreciate not being asked to become Draco's second, something she had thought most fascinating and alluring ever since finding out about Granger being Weasley's second.

She said it was romantic.

He said he would get far too distracted with her on his side.

She took it as a compliment.

He didn't correct her.

Once his girlfriend had followed all the others, Draco heaved a sigh of relief, and sunk into his green and silver armchair by the fire.

He knew he should have been elated at being here at this very moment, and not only being a few games away from becoming the Champion of Hogwarts, but also being alive.

Whereas he was indeed happy for being alive, the solid fact that fame and glory stood only a few paces away did not thrill him as much as it should have.

"Who needs a dream?  
Who needs ambition?  
Who'd be the fool  
In my position?" he asked wistfully from the empty common-room.

"Once I had dreams  
Now they're obsessions  
Hopes became needs  
Lovers possessions

"Then they move in  
Oh so discreetly  
Slowly at first  
Smiling too sweetly  
I opened doors  
They walked right through them  
Called me their friend  
I hardly knew them

"Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be  
And doing what I always said I would  
And yet I feel I haven't won at all  
Running for my life and never looking back  
In case there's someone right behind  
To curse me down and say he always knew I'd fall

"When the crazy wheel slows down  
Where will I be? Back where I started.

"Stupid depression," he announced to the emptiness around him. "Must have been something I ate. Really, tomorrow when I'll finally smash, thrash… and what else did Pansy say? Oh yes, bash the Weasel, I'm sure all this nonsense goes away."

But even saying this, he knew that he was lying to himself.

"Don't get me wrong  
I'm not complaining  
Times have been good  
Fast, entertaining  
But what's the point?  
If I'm concealing  
Not only love  
All common feeling

"Now I'm where I want to be and who I want to be  
And doing what I always said I would  
And yet I feel I haven't won at all  
Running for my life and never looking back  
In case there's someone right behind  
To curse me down and say he always knew I'd fall."

Shaking his head in wry amusement, he raised himself from the armchair to get some much needed rest before tomorrow's game.

_When the crazy wheel slows down  
Where will I be? Back where I started._

_----- _

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	4. Diplomacy

**Chess**

**Diplomacy**

The next morning dawned windy and wet around the Hogwarts castle, yet nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the weather, even though the Quidditch game between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff was fast approaching. All everyone cared about was the well-being of the two heroes at the school; the two champions. When Ron made his way down to breakfast that morning with Harry and Hermione he was happy that all his fights with his friends were once again forgotten. He felt the butterflies in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the Great Hall.

"You know, Harry, I can see now why you can't eat before Quidditch matches when you have to be up against Malfoy," he said, fiddling with the pancake on his plate.

"You must eat!" Hermione scolded him impatiently.

"Ah, leave him be," Harry aided his friend with a sympathetic smile. "It's not like he needs that much strength for a mere game of chess."

"But he needs the energy! I mean, the brain can only synthesize adenosine tri-phosphate by degrading the glucose it gets from the blood, so he needs to eat enough sucrose to fill up his glycogen reserve so that—"

Hermione stopped when she noticed Harry chuckling slightly and Ron staring at her with his mouth open and a piece of pancake dangling on his hoisted fork.

"Anyway," Hermione quickly concluded, "you need this to be able to use the full capacity of your brain later today." She sighed. Her friends were hopeless.

"But I never think when playing chess," Ron said in a surprised voice. "I, I don't know, I just play the game."

At that very moment Snape stepped into the hall, made his way straight to McGonagall, and whispered something to her ear.

"Wonder where they're going," Harry muttered under his breath when McGonagall sharply rose from her chair and followed Snape out of the Great Hall again.

"Let's follow them," Ron said, putting his untouched food back down and jumping up from his chair, quickly followed by Harry.

"You coming?" he asked Hermione, who looked up and down the table, then huffed, and then rose to go with them.

"These are very dangerous and difficult times," she said. "These are very dangerous and difficult times…"

"Oh, shut up! Let's find out what they're discussing!" Harry interrupted her rant.

Exiting the Great Hall they found that the two professors had stopped in the Entrance Hall and were silently talking about one thing or another. McGonagall said something, raised her head, and noticed them approaching.

"Oh, my champion. How are you this morning? Sleep well?"

"Professor McGonagall!" Snape said in the reprimanding you-should-be-the-unbiased-Headmistress voice.

"Professor Snape?" she asked with a smile of yes-I-should-be-but-you-see-I'm-not.

At the same moment a group of Slytherins made their way out from the Great Hall, discussing the coming match.

"It's the Slytherins versus Gryffindor fools  
And we more or less rule!"

"No one can deny that these are difficult times."

"To our credit putting all that aside,  
We have swallowed our pride."

When they noticed the two professors and the Gryffindor champion huddled together in the corner, they moved closer, eager to see what was going on.

"These are very dangerous and difficult times," Hermione whispered as she elbowed Ron to move further away from the teachers. She was afraid that someone might think they were playing unfairly, and she never wanted to bring that kind of blame on Gryffindors.

McGonagall seemed to be thinking along the same lines as her, for she suddenly announced in a loud and clear voice, "It really doesn't matter who comes out on top."

"Who gets the chop," Snape confirmed with a smirk that clearly said he didn't mean any of his words.

"No one's way of life is threatened by a flop," they assured the now growing horde of students that surrounded them, with smiles plastered on their faces. Their eyes, though, told a completely different story, one that was full of dark corridors and cursing from behind and evil smirking all the way.

"But we're gonna smash their bastard!" a bold voice from the Gryffindor side of the room shouted out, followed by a much more timid, "Won't we, Ron?"

"Of course, Neville," Ron said, beaming. "Make him wanna change his name, take him to the cleaners and devastate him, wipe him out, humiliate him," he expanded his definition of smashing.

That was probably too much for the Slytherins to take, because someone from their side shouted out, "We don't want the whole world saying they can't even win a game!"

"We have never reckoned on coming second!" another voice bellowed.

"There's no use in losing!"

The hall was now so full of shouting and angry glares that it became difficult to even separate one yell from another.

"It's the silver up against gold and red!"

"But we're peace loving men," Harry bellowed, with one arm holding back Hermione who was about to jump down on a Slytherin girl that had said something Harry hadn't quite caught but which by the look of it had been pretty insulting, and with other hand keeping the non-alteration charm in place so that Snape, whose hands were twitching already, couldn't draw his wand from his pocket.

"Hermione was right," he told himself, because none of the people surrounding him were in a calm enough condition to listen to anything. "No one can deny that these are difficult times."

Finally Snape gave in and his hand shot into his pocket for his wand, and when he couldn't get it out, he realized something was amiss. He shouted out for McGonagall, who seemed to be waken up from some kind of stupor with that, and realized that she had her wand pointed at a third year Slytherin who now had radishes for ears. She quickly changed the student back to his usual appearance, and pointed the wand at her throat.

"SILENCE," her magically magnified voice ran through the hall, and most of the fights broke up. Snape gave a wry smile and shook his head.

"It's a sweet hail-fellow-well-met affair," Snape said with a forced smile to the Headmistress.

"For both lion and snake," McGonagall confirmed to the watching students. But they, for some reason, still fidgeted on their places, not ready to acknowledge that the fight was over.

"These are very dangerous and difficult times," a voice said silently from somewhere.

"For those that say that this is not a friendly clash  
Don't be so rash!  
I assure you, friends, that this is balderdash," Snape repeated.

Though Harry knew that McGonagall's abilities of silencing people were nothing compared to those of Dumbledore, it didn't take five minutes for the students to rush out of the Entrance Hall once she had decided they had had enough of audience. A glare and a swift loud "To your common rooms!" was enough to send students of any houses running away.

That didn't mean, though, that the fight was over. Once in the safe distance from the professors, smaller groups of Slytherins paired up with groups of Gryffindors, and now there was no reason for them to stop before they were incapable of continuing and a passing student of Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw helped them to the Hospital Wing.

Leaving the Entrance hall, Hermione quickly ran after the same Slytherin girl that she had been trying to throttle earlier.

"Hermione, don't! Let's get back to our common room," Ron shouted after her, running along.

"Ron needs to rest if he's going to win!" Harry supplied, still dangling onto Hermione's arm and doing his best to restrain her.

"I — kill — her—" was all that Hermione answered, panting.

"Inter-house unity!" Ron shouted out as a last attempt to put any reason into Hermione's mind. But the words that before had worked as a magic password had no effect whatsoever, this time.

They caught up with the Slytherins somewhere deep in the dungeons. It seemed as if their prey had thought they had managed to lose them in the labyrinth of dark corridors that the dungeons were, because they were walking slowly and discussing the upcoming match again.

"What a load of whingeing peasants!" one was saying.

"Thinking they can win — they can't!" the smaller girl that Hermione was angry with supported.

"What an exhibition of self-delusion! This one's a foregone conclusion," another said.

"I will tear your flesh into tiny pieces with my bare teeth!" Hermione hissed, throwing off the arms of Harry and Ron that were trying to stop her, and yanked the smaller girl over.

There was a smirk on the cold calculating features of the Slytherin.

"Oh, I thought you said you didn't believe me," she said coldly, her two companions taking a step back and standing there like bodyguards, watching every move that Harry and Ron made.

"Hermione, what's it all about?" Ron asked his girlfriend timidly, but when Hermione turned her glance burning with hate towards him, he quickly added, "Carry on!"

"I insist you give him back now," she hissed menacingly, clutching her wand in a hand shaking with rage.

"If you kill me you will never get him! Anyway, it's all about inter-house unity," the Slytherin sneered, turned around and gestured for her two friends to follow her.

"Enough of all this beating round the bushes of détente!" Hermione screeched, shot after her and threw herself at her, bodily, hitting and punching her with every limb, trying to cause as much pain as possible, weeping all the time.

"Where did you take him? Is he okay? Is he alive? Do you feed him? Please, tell me he's alive!"

Harry and Ron quickly grabbed her hands and hoisted her up from her unmoving opponent. The Slytherin rose up from the ground, the sneer still in place, though her face was bloody and it looked like she was going to have a black eye, waved for her friends to follow her, again, and left without another word.

Once they were alone, Harry and Ron let go of Hermione.

"What was that all about?" Ron asked again.

"Why didn't you let me kill her! She's a murderer, too!" Hermione sobbed.

"I don't know what she told you, but I think you are losing it, Hermione," Harry said silently.

"Maybe I shouldn't have asked you to be my second," Ron added. "You already are so busy with being the Head Girl and the NEWTs and the study groups you organize."

"She said they're keeping Crookshanks locked up in the dungeons!" she wailed, not paying any attention to what her friends were saying. "She said she can't tell me whether he's alive or dead! She said I will never see my cat again!" Hermione said, a new stream of tears bursting out of her eyes.

Ron hugged Hermione, trying to stop her crying. Harry stepped back and watched them for a moment.

It was awful how much desperation a game could cause.

"Ron, you have to win," he said. "I'm sure Malfoy only got to the final with bribe, anyway."

"Yeah," Ron agreed, patting Hermione on her back and rocking her slightly. "I intend to balloon the golden galleon."

"He shall smash them, thrash them," Harry supplied, stroking Hermione's bushy hair.

Hermione shook her tears away, and tried to smile. "Ron, make sure you win!" she said, and they left the dungeons to go to their own common room for the few hours that they had left before the first match.

"Wonder whether McGonagall and Snape have calmed down," Harry said to make conversation as they were approaching the Entrance Hall, again.

"I'm sure they have, they're both grown-up people," Ron said.

Hermione sniffed.

But just as Ron had finished his sentence, even before they had reached the Entrance Hall, they heard the voices of the two professors, again.

"How could you feel that as this great event begins it underbids? The quest for peace, the bonds of Houses interest both Green and Red!" shouted Snape, his back towards the trio as he ascended the stairs to the dungeons.

"As long as our man wins," McGonagall told him from where she was standing on the other side of the Entrance Hall.

"As long as our man wins," Snape concurred.

---

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	5. Arbiter

**Note: **Another chapter. :D We hope you will enjoy it. We do. :)

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**Chess**

**Arbiter**

As Hermione was still feeling a bit down after hearing about Crookshanks' fate, Harry and Ron spent those few hours before the match in front of their common-room fireplace, sharing detailed visions of how bad they were going to beat those stupid Slytherins, and how thoroughly humiliated they would be after the game.

"Don't worry — I will revenge Crookshanks," Ron patted his girlfriend on the back.

Hermione, however, didn't find it one bit comforting.

"Revenge!" she cried out instead. "You talk as if he is already dead!"

"No, I was just... I mean... you said you wanted me to thrash them..." Ron tried to explain himself, surprised and confused by her sudden outburst.

But Hermione was not done yet.

"You never liked Crookshanks," she accused. "You wish he really was dead."

"No! Of course not, Herms..."

"You are a heartless bastard, Ronald Weasley!" she poked him with her finger, then stood up and ran to the Portrait Hole.

"And don't you dare call me 'Herms'," she said threateningly before slipping out of the common-room.

Ron stared after her for a while longer.

"What the hell is wrong with her?" he demanded at last.

"I think," Harry spoke, carefully considering his next words. "She is just a bit nervous about the game."

"Why should she be nervous?" he questioned. "I'm the one playing. And it's just Malfoy. Does she think I can't win?"

"No, no," Harry said quickly. "It's just... you should be careful... I mean, it's Malfoy you are playing against."

"Exactly. And he only got this far thanks to bribe."

"Exactly," Harry concurred.

"So what's the problem," Ron didn't understand.

"If he got this far by bribe and dirty tricks, he might use them today as well."

Ron was silent for a while, letting this new information sink in.

"No," he said at last. "He wouldn't dare. Not with Dumbledore refereeing the match."

"That's true," his friend nodded. "But Dumbledore is not refereeing today's match."

"What? Where did you get that?"

"I heard him speaking to McGonagall the other day. She asked whether they should already move his portrait into Ravenclaw common-room, or perhaps he could share a canvas with Rowena for the match. But he said that there would be no need for it, since there was going to be someone from outside to be the arbiter."

"Oh. Well, I suppose we have to hope that person, whoever he is, won't take bribe."

"You mean an honest person? Where on earth will they be able to find one of those," Harry half-joked.

---

"Albus, please tell me you asked me here with a reason."

"Of course, old friend," the portrait of Dumbledore twinkled. "Whenever have I asked you here without one?"

"There was this time you wanted to have a chat over tea and lemon-drops. Then you wanted my opinion on that rumour of Bloody Baron and Grey Lady going out together. Then once you wondered whether you should refurnish your office. Oh, and of course the mystery of the room filled with chamber-pots..."

"Ah, wasn't that fun!" Dumbledore sighed with nostalgia.

"If you think it's fun to roam around the castle at night with a very full bladder hoping to stumble upon your delusional room once again."

"Ah, those were times, those were times..."

"Albus," he growled. "Why did you ask me here? I don't have time for all this silly reminiscence business. I have work to do."

"You really should take a vacation, you know. Go away to some nice place for a couple of weeks. Bermuda, for example. Have a bit of sun, try diving or water-skiing, enjoy fancy drinks — all the fun stuff!"

"Even if I wanted that," he said with a voice that very clearly stated he wouldn't do it even at wandpoint. "I can't with my current workload. Too many Death Eaters are still on the loose. There is no rest for the wicked."

"Oh, but I didn't suggest the Death Eaters take a vacation, although I probably wouldn't mind that either. I told you to have a break — really, you're wearing yourself out."

"Easy for you to say — you just sit here and twinkle at people!"

"Want to switch? Twinkling isn't that easy of a job as you might think."

"Albus..."

"All right, dear Alastor, you win. I called you here because of... chess."

Moody stared at the portrait for a few moments.

"I swear, Albus, if you weren't already dead, I would personally wring your neck for luring me away from my very important cases just for a friendly game of chess."

"But as I'm here already," he added. "One game would not hurt, I think."

"I knew I could count on you, old friend," Dumbledore chuckled.

"But it's not **playing** chess that I am asking of you — it is refereeing the match," he explained.

"I thought I heard something about a Hogwarts Chess Championship from Arthur. So, which houses made it to the final?"

"Three guesses, my friend."

"Ah," Moody gave an amused look, his equivalent to Dumbledore's twinkling. "Ronald Weasley from Gryffindor then — more than once did we play at Grimmauld Place – that boy is great in strategy. And from Slytherin... the Malfoy kid, I suppose?"

"Correct with all three," Albus smiled. "So, will you take up the place of the arbiter of the game?"

Moody chuckled.

"That's a game destined to be interesting."

---

"Where the bloody hell is she?" Ron demanded, looking around Ravenclaw common-room in frustration. There was still some time left till the start of the match, but both players and their seconds had been summoned already, or in this case, both players and only one second.

Malfoy's second, to Ron's great amusement, was Bloody Baron. Down in the Slytherin dungeons meeting that ghost might have been rather scary, but here in Ravenclaw Tower in broad daylight he looked so out of place that it was actually rather funny.

Ron would have chuckled at it had he not been annoyed over the absence of his own second. The fact that they were now all standing in the empty room waiting in a most uncomfortable silence — him, Malfoy, McGonagall, Snape, and Bloody Baron, did not improve things at all. Neither was the contemptuous sneer Snape was giving him very helpful, or the nervous breathing of McGonagall at the nape of his neck. No, not helpful or relaxing at all.

When the doorway finally opened to admit a bit frazzled Hermione, Ron felt like he had aged a couple of decades. Momentarily forgetting the other people (and ghost) in the room, he opened his mouth to yell at her for her tardiness, but someone beat him to it.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for being late," Snape barked. "Now that our precious Head Girl has finally decided to grace us with her presence, perhaps we can continue with the important things."

Hermione flushed, and she wasn't the only one. McGonagall's eyes had turned to narrow slits, full of indignant anger, and with her lips pressed together into the thinnest line, she took a heavy breath, trying and failing to calm herself down. But when she opened her mouth to give Snape a piece of her mind, another voice boomed into the silent room.

"I would not be so quick to start throwing accusations if I were you, Severus," Moody slowly made his way up to the five people and one ghost.

Snape's sneer slipped for a second, but he managed to get it back to his face almost immediately.

"Here for the entertainment, Alastor? I didn't know you have so much free time on your hands these days. But I suppose all the Death Eaters still left can be caught and sent to prison all by themselves."

"If I wanted to see a Death Eater, I wouldn't have to look too far, would I?" Moody sneered right back at him.

Now it was Snape's time to draw a sharp breath in the attempt to calm himself.

"What are you here for, Mad-Eye?" he demanded.

"What am I here for?" Moody chuckled. "I tell you what I'm here for.

"I've a duty as the referee  
At the start of the match  
On behalf of old Albus  
I must welcome you  
Which I do — there's a catch

"I don't care if you're a champion  
No-one messes with me  
I am ruthless in upholding  
What I know is right  
Black or white — as you'll see

"I'm on the case  
Can't be fooled  
Any objection  
Is overruled  
Yes I'm the Arbiter and I know best."

"You're the Arbiter?" Snape scowled. "What kind of fool would ask you to referee the game!"

"If you call Albus fool one more time I will introduce, or should I say re-introduce you to the business end of my wand," the old Auror growled.

Snape got the message and fell silent, although that didn't keep him from sending out killer glares.

"He's impartial, don't push him, he's unimpressed," Ron muttered under his breath, happy with the chosen referee.

"Minerva," Moody turned now to McGonagall. "You should give those twenty points back to Miss Granger. She was late only because I asked her to accompany me here."

"Twenty points to Gryffindor," McGonagall beamed, sending Snape a victorious look.

"Well, now that we are all here," Moody continued. "Let me say something to our young champions, and not only to them."

Both Snape and McGonagall took it personally, just as it was meant, and were about to protest, when Moody went on.

"You got your tricks  
Good for you  
But there's no gambit  
I don't see through  
Oh I'm the Arbiter, I know the score

"From square one I'll be watching all 64."

"From square one he'll be watching all 64," Ron repeated silently, glancing surreptitiously at Malfoy, who in turn was glancing surreptitiously at Moody, looking a bit pale.

"If you're thinking of the kind of thing  
That we've seen in the past  
Helping spells, potions, jinxes,  
Walkouts, crystal balls,  
Tempers, fists - not so fast

"This is not some war of Red and Green  
No such enmities  
I think both your Houses are wonderful so  
Now you know, be good boys

"I'm on the case  
Can't be fooled  
Any objection  
Is overruled  
Yes I'm the Arbiter and I know best."

"He's impartial, don't push him, he's unimpressed," Ron mouthed to Malfoy with a smirk.

"You got your tricks  
Good for you  
But there's no gambit  
I don't see through  
Oh I'm the Arbiter, I know the score

"From square one I'll be watching all 64."

"From square one he'll be watching all 64," Hermione repeated loudly, then blushed and quickly looked away when all eyes suddenly turned to her.

But Moody only chuckled at the interruption.

"I'm on the case — can't be fooled!  
You've got your tricks — good for you!

"I'm on the case  
Can't be fooled  
Any objection  
Is overruled

"Yes I'm the Arbiter and I know best."

"He's impartial, don't push him, he's unimpressed," Bloody Baron chanted, definitely feeling so much out of his element to start singing, even though he managed to keep his voice dark and threatening.

"You got your tricks  
Good for you  
But there's no gambit  
I don't see through  
Oh I'm the Arbiter, I know the score

"From square one I'll be watching all 64."

"From square one he'll be watching all 64," McGonagall warned Snape.

"Oh I'm the Arbiter, I know the score  
From square one I'll be watching all 64."

"From square one he'll be watching all 64," repeated everyone in the room together.

"And remember," Moody added after a moment of silence. "I don't take cheating lightly. Instead, I'll take care of it personally."

The look on Malfoy's face made Ron smile.

"As for you two," Moody nodded at the finalists. "It's time to get ready for your game."

With a warning glance to their player, the two Professors walked towards their seats, best in the room. Moody took a special chair close to the central table, in order to have a good view of the game.

"Good luck," Hermione turned to Ron, and kissed him on his cheek.

"I'll show him who the **real** champions are," Ron smiled back, their past fight in the common-room and Hermione's tardiness completely wiped from his mind. For now, at least.

Carefully observing the sight in front of him, Bloody Baron turned to Malfoy. He had never done this chess second business before, and therefore wasn't very sure what was expected from him.

"Same from me, although I'd rather not kiss you," he announced, and hovered away.

With a little wave Hermione moved away towards her seat as well, leaving Ron and Draco alone at the central table.

"Good luck, I suppose," Malfoy drawled after a while.

"Good luck," Ron repeated. "With dealing with the humiliation of being a loser."

Malfoy narrowed his eyes, but kept his silence.

"Oh, and one more thing," Ron could not hold himself back. "If you're worrying about Moody for this little incident back in Fourth Year, don't. That was not the real Moody, but an imposter Death Eater. You know, one of **your** side. The genuine Moody is very much on **our** side, and he would just love to take revenge for his good old friend."

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**REVIEW** and tell us. :) We have cookies. ;)


	6. Hymn To Chess

**Note: **Cookies, chocolate, and bucketful of snow to **Schermionie**, **flowersinmyhair**,** caramary**, **Indiglo**, and **Ember Nickel **for your wonderful reviews. :)

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**Chess**

**Hymn to Chess**

Hermione sat down on the very edge of her chair, right next to the Bloody Baron. She quickly tore off her jumper and threw it on the chair on the other side of her to save a seat for Harry. There was still ample time before the start of the match, but people were already flooding the Ravenclaw common room, entering through the Window Hole in a constant flow of chatter, good humour, and enjoyment.

"You know…" the Baron started when they had been sitting there for quite some time already.

"Shh!" Hermione interrupted, craning her neck to see whether Harry was coming already so she could invite him to sit next to her. She really didn't want to be sitting between a ghost and a Slytherin, for example. But Harry was nowhere to be seen.

Minutes flared past and Hermione was still fidgeting on her chair, trying to divide her attention between the still continuous flow of students now occupying almost all the chairs in the common room, the current staring match between the Chess Champions, and the silent strained argument of words-not-said between Snape and McGonagall just in front of her.

"You know, I think…" the Baron said, but Hermione silenced him again with an impatient wave of her hand.

"No, you can't sit here, it's taken," she said, choosing instead to turn towards the second year Hufflepuff girl whom Ron had beaten in his quarter final match.

The girl stomped away, throwing angry glances at Hermione for her rash words, and tearing off the red-and-gold rosette she had had in her hair.

But Hermione didn't notice that. Her attention was turned towards the Champions now. Draco was sitting back in his chair, seemingly relaxed, but there was a glint of anxiety in his eyes, something which Hermione had often seen during the war, and what even now had almost made her shout out to her boyfriend to be careful. Draco's chessmen, too, looked peaceful, standing on their squares in two straight rows, the King and Queen engaged in something that looked a lot like playing chess without a board.

Ron, on the other hand, looked a complete opposite to his rival. His ears had taken on the same colour as his hair, he was bent low on the table, bowing over the board; every now and then he looked at his watch. His hands never stopped — he needed to change the position of his quill and notebook for about three times a minute. His chair was always either too far away from the table or too close. His glass of water was always positioned just so that it reflected light into his eyes.

And his chessmen, too, were all but peaceful. They were stamping in their squares, sending nervous glances at each other and at their opponents.

But Ron's eyes, contrary to Draco's, held a look of defiance and confidence. Even though to every other person in the room it might have looked as if Draco was winning the first match even before it managed to start, Hermione saw how the Slytherin was cracking under Ron's self-assured eyes.

She wasn't the only one in the room to see that, though. It was clear that both Snape and McGonagall had noticed it, because the first looked as if he had just swallowed Crookshanks, and the other, though she tried to keep the impartial face on, was beaming inside.

Moody, too, was keeping his normal eye fixed on the players, his features betraying nothing of any of his possible favouritism in the match, but still a clear understanding of the conditions of the competitors' nerves was there. His magical eye was swirling around in its socket at a speed which Hermione would have considered impossible if she hadn't seen it herself; yet it was clear to her that the old Auror was doing it just to impress and intimidate those students that hadn't seen his eye from that close before. All in all he looked to be enjoying himself completely; his legs, both the normal one and the wooden one, were hoisted up on a stool, he was leaning back in his black and white armchair, and playing around with a strange pencil-like instrument which, Hermione was certain, was there to help him referee the match.

"You know what I think?" the Bloody Baron said suddenly, stabbing his hand through Hermione to get her attention.

Hermione looked at him angrily and motioned him to be quiet.

"They might be starting any second now!" she said in an urgent whisper.

"But I just wanted to say that…" the ghost continued, but Hermione turned away from him pointedly, ignoring him.

Instead she stood up and looked towards the Window Hole, to see if Harry had come already. But there was still no sign of him. There was just a group of sixth year Gryffindor girls huddled together at the entrance, standing, talking to each other, and letting their eyes glide over the rows of seats. Hermione didn't notice Ginny amongst them, either.

Suddenly one of them stopped her wondering eyes at Hermione, and made her way to her.

"May I?" she asked, and not waiting an answer took Hermione's jumper off the chair and threw it to her.

"No, it's taken already," Hermione replied in a voice which was malicious enough to freeze the blood in the veins of a ghost.

"So they were right! You are keeping a seat for Ginny! I knew it," and she stomped off in an angry pace.

"Hermione, I—" the Baron started to say in a heavy and dark tone, then changed his mind and continued lightly, "You should let someone sit there. It's the only vacant seat left in the hall."

Hermione turned to her neighbour with a surprised face. She had never heard that kind of easy tone being used by the Horror of the Dungeons. It somehow managed to hoist the enormous load that her nerves were keeping on her up from her shoulders.

"What was it you wanted to say earlier?" she asked apologetically, feeling a bit bad for her previous rude attitude.

"Oh, just that—" but again he couldn't finish his sentence.

"HOW COULD YOU!" McGonagall shouted suddenly, shot up from her seat, tore Snape to his feet, too, and slapped him with all her might. Then she turned away pointedly, and started walking towards the now closed Window Hole, but before she could reach it she banged into the hovering wizard cam that wasn't swift enough to float away from her trajectory.

Everyone in the hall had stopped talking, the Champions had both turned their attention to McGonagall, even Moody had turned both his eyes to her.

As McGonagall wavered on her feet and fell into Snape's arms, a large bump on her forehead, Snape quickly sneered despite the gleaming red mark Minerva's hand had left on his cheek.

"Seems our Headmistress is a bit unbalanced," he remarked, helping her back to her seat. Malfoy smirked uncomfortably.

"Maybe we should get her to the Hospital Wing," Hermione suggested in a horrified squeak, having jumped up from her chair, and now bowing over the immobile form of McGonagall.

But those seemed to be the magic words to wake the Headmistress up. Her eyes popped open and she shook her head indignantly, probably to look authoritative and regain her vision at the same time. Then her gaze moved slowly from Snape to Moody to Hermione who was still hovering over her, and she understood in a moment.

"I will not let Professor Snape's impolite comments stop me from enjoying a nice game of chess," she said, sitting up straighter in her chair and shooing Hermione away.

The latter sank on her seat disappointedly, failing to catch the Headmistress' attention again to ask her whether she was feeling well.

"Want to bet?" the Baron asked her suddenly.

"Bet what?" Hermione wondered, turning to her neighbour.

"On what you think he told her. I think it had something to do with her sexuality," Bloody Baron winked, making Hermione gape at him.

"Eee… sure," she nodded, not knowing what else to say. "A galleon?" she asked silently, making sure that neither of the professors would hear.

"I don't think I have any," the Baron said, "but I suppose I could frighten someone to give you one… or then drop it to the ground whence you could pick it up."

Hermione smiled uncertainly, but then shook the thought of a bet with the most feared ghost in the castle away.

"So, what was it you wanted to say, before she banged her head?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

"Ah, well, just that—" the Baron started.

"Thanks!" Ginny said, as she plopped down on Hermione's sweater, then pulled it out from under her and threw at Hermione. Hermione and the ghost burst out laughing.

"What?" Ginny asked. "And why haven't you taken a seat for Harry, you know he'd love to watch this. It's his best friend playing there. Well, I personally wouldn't call it playing, though, it's more like trying to choke each other with looks, at least right now it's like that. And I don't suppose they would get any less anxious to win as the match starts. Isn't it starting quite soon already?"

Hermione studied Ginny with a crooked eyebrow, then continued to laugh. It seemed that nervousness affected Ginny differently from other people she knew. Bloody Baron stared at Ginny with wide eyes as the girl didn't even notice she hadn't got any answer to her question, and had continued to speak of everything and nothing.

"You were saying?" Hermione asked the Baron once more, making sure there was nobody in vicinity to interfere this time.

"Oh, I was just going to ask that

Don't you find it rather touching to behold  
The game that came in from the cold  
Seen for what it is — religion plus finesse  
Houses, classes, creeds as one, in  
Love of chess."

Hermione nodded at the Baron, then let her gaze wonder over everyone around her once more. The crowd, half of them wearing gold and red, the other half clearly dressed in silver and green; the most important professors in the school, one sporting a bump on her head, the other having a handprint on his cheek; the Champions, eyeing each other like they'd rather be having their opponent for dinner.

"Yeah, I can see the love," she said sarcastically, when Moody finally rose from his seat, put his pencil-like instrument behind his ear, and raised his wand.

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	7. Merchandisers

**Note: **We are both big fans of Hufflepuffs. ;)

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**Chess**

**Chapter 7: Merchandisers**

Harry was not in the best of moods. It might have had something to do with the fact that his best friends were arguing once again, or his best friends had left without him and rarely seemed to notice him at all these days, or that even Ginny had left for the game with a couple of girls in her year, never once sending him a questioning glance, even though he had been in full view, trying to catch her attention.

It might have been the fact that even though Harry did not like all the attention he had got in the past, he didn't like being completely ignored by people either, especially by those who called themselves his friends.

But as it was, Harry was upset for a completely different reason. A reason named Dennis Creevey. His brother Colin had probably been the first to enter the Ravenclaw common room after the contestants and teachers – so excited had he been about the game. Dennis, who hadn't been the avid photographer before, had taken notice of how beneficial Colin's business was – people did pay him for good pictures, and with years he had grown experienced enough to take them of the most scandalous situations and escape with his camera intact – and bought himself a camera as well.

And thus it happened that as Harry stepped round the corner, he was suddenly blinded by a flash, yelled the apology of "You are not Ron!", and knocked over by the boy rushing past him.

His vision took a good ten minutes to return, and his mood did not improve while he was waiting.

His mood did not improve on his way to the Ravenclaw Tower either, nor upon reaching the window with drawn curtains and a sign announcing that the room was full, and no more people were allowed inside.

In fact, instead of improving, Harry's mood did the exact opposite, and now in front of the curtained window, he snapped.

"You listen to me, window, and you listen to me good! I am Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Saviour of Wizardkind, the Destroyer of Voldemort, et cetera, et cetera. I demand you let me in this very moment!"

The curtains fluttered in the nonexistent breeze, and a gentle whisper spoke out.

"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Saviour of Wizardkind, the Destroyer of Voldemort, et cetera, et cetera, the Ravenclaw Tower accepts you not. Turn back while you still can."

"Listen to me, you stupid window..." Harry seethed.

"Hear my warning, Harry Potter. Or you will feel the wrath of the window."

Harry stared at the window, contemplating which spell to use to blast it into tiny pieces, when a timid voice spoke out from behind him.

"I'm late, aren't I?" Neville said wistfully, eyeing the sign. "I had to feed Veronica at the last moment, but I still thought I could make it. Well, I suppose the game is a lot more popular that we had guessed."

Harry sighed, and turned to face his friend and fellow Gryffindor. He had really wanted to blow something up. But perhaps blasting a hole into a room full of teachers, students, and if the rumours were right, the Bloody Baron and Moody, wasn't quite that great of an idea. Plus, it might ruin Ron's concentration, and he did not want Slytherin's victory on his conscience.

"Veronica?" he asked in confusion, once Neville's words had finally sunk in.

"Oh, that's my Venomous Tentacula. Professor Sprout allows me to keep her in the greenhouse so that she would not endanger anyone, but after graduation she's going straight to my back yard. Do you want to meet her - she's quite harmless, actually."

That statement sounded so much like Hagrid talking about one ferocious beast or another that Harry had to suppress a shudder.

"Perhaps some other time," he answered diplomatically. "Right now I'm really interested in the game."

They both threw another look at the curtained window and let out a sigh.

"Oh, well, I guess it's the Great Hall for us then," Neville said at last. "They are going to project the game there from those little hovering contraptions... Hannah told me she got a glimpse of it when they were testing it, and the view was pretty good."

"Yeah, let's go," Harry nodded and followed Neville away from the window, but not before sending it one last murderous glance.

---

They hadn't even reached the Entrance Hall yet, when Harry suddenly stopped.

Neville, who had been walking at his side, halted in his steps as well, and gave him a questioning look.

"Listen. Can't you hear it?" Harry inquired.

Neville listened. A chorus of voices came from somewhere downstairs.

"They are singing again," he shrugged, and picked up the pace. "Let's go, the game should start any minute now."

The closer they came to the Great Hall, the clearer the voices became, and once reaching the ground level, the words were easily recognizable.

_Whether you are snake or lion  
Or could not care less  
We are here to tell you  
We are here to sell you chess  
Not a chance of you escaping from our wiles  
We've charmed the doors, we've charmed the aisles  
We've a franchise worth exploiting  
And we will - yes we will!  
When it comes to merchandising_  
_We could kill_

"Who's killing who?" Neville wondered, not sounding one bit worried. If anything good had come out of the war, besides Voldemort's destruction, imprisonment of many Death Eaters, and Ron finally admitting he liked Hermione (although there were days, like today, when Harry doubted this being a good thing), it was the boost of confidence it had given to Neville.

"Let's go and find out," Harry suggested, thinking that if he could not blast a wall, then at least he could beat up a few Slytherins.

---

The doors to the Great Hall were shut, but once Harry and Neville reached them, they opened up and an invisible force pulled them into the room.

The doors closed silently behind them, but even if they had done it with a bang, no one would have heard it with the deafening noise inside the hall.

The four house tables were in their place, much to the surprise of Harry who had imagined a different arrangement, and people were swarming around them, pushing their way through the crowds, and yelling to hear each other in the noise. At the Hufflepuff table, the chatter and clatter was accompanied with constant music and singing.

Harry wished nothing more than to turn around and run away, but the same mysterious force that had pulled him into the room, now dragged him to the nearest table, which happened to be the Hufflepuff one.

"When you get up -  
When you get up in the morning  
Till you crash at night  
You will have to live your life  
With bishop, rook and knight,"

Ernie announced, indicating towards the small space of free floor where three younger students where jumping up and down, each a perfect life-size model of those three named chess pieces, nothing other than their colourful eyes indicating their being real persons.

"COME AROUND, PEOPLE, COME AROUND!!! Play life-size chess with your friends. Be any piece you want to. The charm lasts minimum three hours. Comes in different colours and sizes!!!"

Someone pushed Harry and he staggered a few steps further, coming to stand before Susan Bones.

"Clean your teeth with chequered toothpaste," she chanted, and smiled a very black and yellow smile.

"Black and white! Black and yellow! Black and red! White and blue! White and green! Red and green!" she held up six tubes in her hand. "Choose your favourite!"

Before Harry was given any time to react, a girl he didn't recognize jumped to the table, wearing nothing but a tiny vest and the shortest skirt he had ever seen, both black and white chequered, with the embroidered pieces of chess jumping from one square to another, from her shoulders to her stomach to her breasts.

"Wear our vests  
Our kings and queens on bouncing breasts!"

She claimed happily, jumping up and down to show how they bounced.

Harry blushed and looked quickly away, trying and failing to escape the table.

Being pushed and pulled along the rest of the crowd, he was offered a great variety of other charms and potions ("Support your house! Grow yourself red mane and tail, or green scales and forked tongue!"), several soft stuffed dolls of either Ron or Malfoy, all kinds of chequered clothing, necklaces of red or green that sang in a horribly high voice _We are the winners! We are! We are! We are the winners! We are! We are!_, odd looking devices that Harry didn't know and didn't want to know, and basically everything dyed green, red, white, and black.

Reaching the end of the table, Harry was finally able to step away, but his relief didn't last much longer than a couple of seconds – then he was suddenly pulled towards another table.

While the Hufflepuff table had been one great splash of colour and shouting, the situation at the Ravenclaw table was much clearer. Instead of black and yellow checkers, the table-cloth was dark blue and wonderfully calming to Harry's painful eyes. Upon the cloth, several boards of chess had been placed – the usual set of black and white, then those in the colours of each house, those of all the houses paired up with other houses, boards with chess pieces carved to look like Ron and Malfoy, boards with king Ron and queen Hermione against king Malfoy and queen Parkinson (or in some cases, queen Bloody Baron).

"You could even buy a set  
And learn to play  
We don't mind we'll sell you something  
Anyway,"

Someone told him, and looking up from a particularly fancy board of gold and silver, a yellow and black chequered grin greeted him once again. He couldn't recognize the boy, but it was quite obvious he was Hufflepuff.

Even at the green and silver Slytherin table, all the salespeople seemed to be Hufflepuffs.

"We've done all our market research  
And our findings show  
That this game of chess could be around  
A month or so,"

A blonde girl told him, offering him a lollipop knight for only 10 Knuts.

"Maybe it's a bit confusing  
For a game,"

A small boy with bright blue eyes muttered a bit timidly, nodding towards the tiny moving figures of either Malfoys, or snakes, or half-Malfoys half-snakes.

"But Wiz' Decahedrons were much the same  
In the end the whole world bought one  
All were gone  
By which time we merchandisers  
Had moved on!"

Harry was getting dizzy from all the noise and all the people and all the pushing and pulling and screaming and singing.

The battle against Voldemort seemed to be a piece of cherry pie compared to what he had to go through to reach the Gryffindor table, and even there the situation wasn't much better.

"By which time we had moved on!" someone yelled into his ear.

Harry had no idea what he would have done, though it probably wouldn't have been pretty, if at that moment an arm hadn't grabbed hold of his leg, pulled him down to the floor and under the table.

"You all right, Harry?" Neville asked in a concerned tone.

"Only if I never have to go out to **that** again," Harry shuddered.

The other boy chuckled.

"Thank goodness for Silencing Charms," he said, and Harry nodded in total agreement, letting the sweet silence heal his hurting ears and frazzled nerves.

"So much for watching the game," Harry said after a few moments of heavenly silence.

"Oh!" Neville gasped and handed him what looked like normal sunglasses.

"Put them on," he instructed. "Tap them with your wand and say _Video_."

Harry did exactly that, and immediately the image of the Ravenclaw common room appeared before his eyes, so real as if he was there himself.

Excited, his turned his full attention to the scene now playing before his eyes.

---

"Whether you are snake or lion  
Or could not care less  
We are here to tell you  
We are here to sell you chess  
Not a chance of you escaping from our wiles  
We've charmed the doors, we've charmed the aisles  
We've a franchise worth exploiting  
And we will - yes we will!  
When it comes to merchandising  
We could kill," the Hufflepuffs sang.

"Take that, Ravenclaw wenches!" Ernie cried.

---

"Thank you for the tea and company," Albus bowed. "But now, my fair Lady, I should go and supervise the students in the Great Hall."

"Nonsense, Albus," Lady Rowena waved her hand. "They are responsible children, I'm sure they manage on their own. Now sit down with me and let's watch the game."

"You are probably right, my fair Lady," Albus smiled and sat down again.

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**Disclaimer: **The "we are the winners" part was borrowed from Lithuania's Eurovision Song 2006.

Ahh, aren't Hufflepuffs simply fantastic. :D

**And don't forget to REVIEW!**


	8. Chess 1

**Note: **This chapter has no song. It has no hedgehogs either, but that's beside the point. Oh, and **Happy Valentine's Day! **Love you all. :)

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**Chess**

**Chess #1**

"SILENCE!" Moody's magically magnified voice croaked so loudly that all movement in the common room died down instantly, Hermione forgot to breathe, and even Harry in the Great Hall under Gryffindor Table froze on spot. The following silence was filled with a large beaming smile from the Arbiter as he enjoyed his authority and the fact that everyone's eyes and the three wizard cams were all turned to him. Then, suddenly, something interfered with the perfect silence — a click came from somewhere, a click as if a teacup had been placed on its saucer.

Moody's magical eye moved towards Rowena Ravenclaw's portrait whence he found professor Dumbledore, sitting on the floor, and giving him a thumbs-up.

Then Moody nodded to Flitwick, who was standing on the staircase to the dormitories. This was definitely a pre-arranged signal because the tiny professor turned his back to the common room, took out his wand, and with one wave the illusion spell was lifted from the stairs, and all the spectators ah-ed and oh-ed as they saw the orchestra lined up there.

Upon Flitwick's command a drum roll started, and the trumpets blew. Moody smiled as he bellowed together with the orchestra.

"My dear friends," he said. "We have all gathered here today to watch this first encounter between two Hogwarts' House Champions, Mr. Ronald Weasley and Mr. Draco Malfoy!"

A loud applause followed, and Hermione took the chance to bow towards the Bloody Baron to comment on it.

"They're not the House Champions, this has nothing to do with Houses," she said angrily. "They're just the finalists, aren't they? I know they are."

The Bloody Baron nodded quickly, saying, "Of course," though in actuality he hadn't heard a word she said.

Moody continued. "All personal cameras are forbidden—"

"Not fair!" Colin shouted from somewhere, but as Moody and all others in the room turned towards him, he quickly snapped a photo, before his camera disappeared into his bag.

"As I was saying," Moody resumed, "the cameras are forbidden, there will be no charming, hexing, jinxing, spelling, transfiguring, or any other form of using magic in this room during the match. I remind you to keep total silence. Anyone breaking any of the aforementioned rules or general school rules will be removed from the arena instantly with no questions asked. Is that clear?"

Another applause answered the question, though the Bloody Baron couldn't not remark, "Was that a 'yes' or a 'no'?"

Hermione laughed nervously, not hearing anything he said, but thinking it would be polite to laugh.

"And now," Moody shouted again when the applause died down. There was another drum roll, and the trumpets bellowed again.

"Let the first match begin!"

There were a few ecstatic Ravenclaw students who started applauding to that, but before a moment had passed, Moody drew his wand, gave it a quick flick and the students had disappeared from the hall. That resumed the silence more effectively than anything else could have.

The music from the orchestra had reduced to a barely noticeable hum of violins and flutes, and the crowd saw how Malfoy, who was playing white, sat up in his chair and barked his opening command, "Pawn from b2 to b3."

"That's Larsen's opening," Hermione whispered to the Bloody Baron swiftly, then grabbed hold of the edge of her chair with both hands and started rocking back and forth, mumbling all the time, "I hope he remembers what to do… I hope he remembers what to do…"

"Pawn from e7 to e5," Ron smirked confidently as his pawn stepped two squares forward.

"Good boy," Hermione whispered almost to herself. "That's what Spassky used against Larsen in the first match at the USSR vs. Rest of the World in 1960, and he won in just 17 moves…" but she was interrupted by a sharp elbow between her ribs.

"Shut up!" she could read from Ginny's lips.

"Look who's talking," she hissed back just as silently, but Ginny probably missed this because she had already turned back towards the chess board, the two Champions, and the Arbiter.

Hermione, seeing that her poisonous comment had had no effect whatsoever, let her gaze float over the common room. When she saw that every single person had their eyes trained on the game, she followed example. Moving over the portrait of Ravenclaw her eyes met Dumbledore's, and the dead professor sent her an encouraging smile and raised his cup of tea in toast.

Moody, she noticed, had taken the silvery instrument out from behind his ear, and was using it now to write down the moves on a small piece of really thin and bleached white pocket-sized parchment, which looked a lot like Muggle paper. Now and then the Arbiter would take another small apparatus out from one of his pockets, place it on top of the silvery instrument, turn it there some rounds so that a thin silvery ribbon snaked out of it, then he would take it off and place back in his pocket, only to use the first instrument again for writing down the next moves.

"Queen-side castling," Ron said confidently and watched his King move two steps towards the further side of the board, and the Rook pass the King. With a jolt Hermione noticed the game had moved on much quicker than she had expected, and the positions of the pieces at that moment were completely different from what they had been when she last looked at the board.

"King-side castling," Draco answered to Ron, and his King moved behind his pawns on the opposing side of the board.

An audible "Ah!" came from the orchestra, and one fagot gave a definitely wrong tone. All eyes turned towards him, and Hermione recognized Terry Boot, now completely red in his face, behind the instrument. He had probably been following the game while playing his music, and it seemed Draco's move had been a surprise for him. Hermione smiled happily at his discomfort, remembering how Terry had insulted her.

But a moment later she turned back to the board to see what Ron would do now.

Ron was gaping in surprise; it was clear he had also expected some other reply to his move. He quickly took a gulp of water from his glass, and barked a command to his pieces. Hermione saw his Knight moving forward, right into attack from Draco's Queen. Ron's red ears and swiftly moving eyes betrayed it to Hermione that he, too, hadn't noticed this in time, and was now desperately trying to find a way out of this situation.

Draco smirked knowingly. He was so convinced his unexpected castling had thrown the victory in his hands that he didn't even glance at the board before making the next move. The audience, though, was watching the board eagerly, and almost everyone gasped in surprise when they saw Malfoy's Queen moving forward, and stopping in a position which was under attack from one of Ron's Rooks.

When Ron noticed Malfoy's move, his eyes started inspecting the board at a speed which Hermione though must have been unhealthy. It seemed as if the Gryffindor Champion thought that his opponent was trying to fool him into taking the Queen, and eager to find out any ulterior motive behind that kind of movement. He didn't have any eyes left for Draco, because if he had had, he would have understood there was nothing intentional in his silly mistake.

But Ron didn't know that. Instead he tried to blow Malfoy's game plan by putting one of his Bishops up for sacrifice.

Turn went back to Malfoy, who almost whooped at having kept his Queen, and then started studying the now uncommonly open positions of the chessmen on the board more severely. For a minute or so everyone watched him expectantly, but then soft murmurs of discontent were starting up in the audience.

"Chess is so much slower than Quidditch," Hermione heard someone mutter somewhere behind her. "And I personally like speed."

It seemed that Hermione wasn't the only one who heard it. Before the whispering student got his response from his neighbour, Moody had drawn his wand and flicked it towards him, making him disappear. Professor Flitwick, too, behaved as if he had heard it. He gave some sort of signal to the orchestra, and the pace of their music increased, as did its volume.

Ron, though, seemed not bothered by the pause Malfoy was making. He had calmed down to some effect, and was sitting comfortably in his chair now, fiddling with his House banner, and thumping his fingers on the table. The wizard cams took the chance to take some panorama views of the Ravenclaw common room, and were floating around slowly, trying to catch interesting faces from the crowd, showing the fans who sported most House colours, or zooming in towards professor Dumbledore and Rowena Ravenclaw, the head of the latter resting peacefully on the shoulder of the first, both having long ago switched from tea to red wine.

"Mr. Arbiter!" Malfoy suddenly asked, making all eyes in the hall turn to him, and the three cameras flip around so quickly they almost broke themselves in the process. "Is it possible for me to have some pumpkin juice?" he asked.

Moody played with his silvery pencil, and then turned to Snape and McGonagall.

"Professors?" he asked.

Hermione hadn't given the two professors in the first row much mind after the start of the match, but now that she turned to them she almost snorted with laughter. Snape was sitting on the edge of his chair, white in his face (apart from the still red mark on his cheek), physically keeping his mouth shut with his hand to make sure he wouldn't start shouting counsel to Malfoy. McGonagall, contrary to Snape, was completely red in her face, her hair falling a bit out of her strict bun, the look in her eyes still a little disoriented.

"Of course," Snape said icily. "If the Champion wishes—"

McGonagall nodded with a small smile.

"Mr. Weasley, would you like some?" she asked in a motherly voice, completely ignoring, or just not noticing, the hissing beside her.

Hermione smiled infernally. Snape was almost fuming now, his crooked nose twitching. But Moody had already turned away from them, and proved again his mastery of magic by changing the pure water into pumpkin juice.

Somewhere in the middle Ron had got up from his chair and started pacing his side of the room, hands crossed on his back and head bent low.

Draco took a gulp of his juice, then ordered his chessmen, "Knight from f5 to d6!"

Moody quickly noted it down on his paper, then started drawing number 28 there with his pencil.

"Mr. Arbiter!" Ron asked, plopping down in his chair, almost in identical voice and intonation to that of Malfoy.

"Mr. Weasley?" Moody asked, his normal eye stopping on him, his magical eye swirling around to gaze at Snape.

"May I take a walk?" Ron asked.

"No, you may not!" Draco answered, jumping up from his chair.

"Mr. Arbiter?" Ron asked, more loudly.

"Play the game!" Malfoy insisted.

Ron shot up from his chair, bowing towards Malfoy over the chess board. The chessmen looked up to the two Champions hovering over them. Both Ron and Draco had faces as if they would have liked nothing more than to take the board and pound their opponent with it.

Ron took Draco's glass of pumpkin juice and drained it, giving the Slytherin a challenging look.

Draco answered by drinking up Ron's juice.

Ron threw his chair away and walked over to Malfoy.

"That was my juice," he hissed.

"I know," Malfoy sneered maliciously.

"You don't deserve to play with **me**!"

"**You** don't deserve to play against me!" Draco didn't retreat a bit.

"I will—" Ron started angrily, took a deep breath, looked around, and then shook his head.

"What, are you afraid of me?" Draco shouted when Ron didn't finish his sentence.

"No," Ron said, his voice level, but his ears as red as they got. "I just won't play with you."

And with that he turned on the spot, and stomped to the Window Hole.

Draco watched him go like everyone else in the room, and Harry and Neville in the Great Hall. Then, without realising why he did it, he turned angrily to Moody, and shouted to the old Auror, "You play your game if you want!" A moment later he had left the same way as Ron.

The orchestra ended their piece with an overwhelming crescendo, making the silence in the room complete.

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	9. Arbiter: Reprise

**Chess**

**Chapter 9: Arbiter (Reprise)**

A wave of whispers rose in the common room after the initial silence of people being far too shocked to say anything. Now, everybody seemed to be whispering with everybody else, and Colin even took the risk of getting out his camera and snapping a few pictures.

Moody was still staring at the Window Hole through which the two finalists had disappeared some minutes ago. His face was turned away, but if someone had seen it, they would have thought the old Auror petrified.

However, Moody was not petrified. And if Dumbledore had been still awake, he could have told everyone in the room to hide themselves at once.

"My fault! My fault!" McGonagall's shrill cry rang through the sea of whispers. "I'll tell you whose fault it is, you despicable blood-thirsty leech!"

"Keep your mouth shut, woman! What a perfect little Gryffindor princess, always blaming everyone else for your mistakes," Snape hissed back.

"How dare you... you vile hooked-nosed bastard..." the Headmistress started, but didn't get any further because Moody had chosen that moment to wheel around and silence them with his extra evil look.

"I'm on the case  
Can't be fooled  
Any objection  
Is overruled,"

He chanted, as if placing some horrible terrible curse on the two Professors.

"Don't try to tempt me  
You've no hope  
I don't like women  
I don't take dope."

Someone in the audience made the grave mistake of sniggering. And someone else signed their death warrant with a simple question of "Does he like men then?"

With one sweep of his wand, the whole common room was suddenly empty save himself, the two Professors, Hermione and the Bloody Baron. The seconds, exchanging one horrified look, quickly rushed towards the exit. The ghost hovered right through it, but poor Hermione had to take a moment to open the window first. Those ten seconds felt the longest in her life, afraid of being told to stay put.

But fortunately she made it out of the tower, hearing Moody's yell shake the floor.

"I'm the Arbiter, my word is law  
From square one I'm watching you!"

---

"I could do with a nice bottle of Firewhiskey now," the Bloody Baron noted a bit sadly.

"I could do with a nice yelling at Ron now," Hermione fumed. "Who the hell does he think he is – walking out of the room like that. Just like that! Throwing his game to the four winds! Does he think everyone will run after him pleading and begging him to come back?"

The ghost didn't answer, although he was giving her a calculating look.

"Well, they probably will," Hermione laughed bitterly, then noticed her companion's curious gaze.

"What?" she asked.

"Shouldn't you be blaming Mr. Malfoy for everything? He is after all your rival, and I've noticed a bit of tension between the noble Houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin."

"You're right," Hermione said in surprise. "I should be blaming Malfoy for everything. He started it, after all, with asking for pumpkin juice, and later yelling at Ron. Of course I should be blaming Malfoy. Thank you, Baron."

The ghost nodded.

"We should find our players before Moody murders those two," he suggested.

"Oh, I'm sure it's not that—"

"IF YOU DON'T STOP YOUR ARGUING RIGHT THIS SECOND, I SHALL TELL PEOPLE YOU FANCY EACH OTHER!"

"—bad," Hermione finished silently. "On second thought, let's go!"

---

Ron was not in the Gryffindor Tower, which was instead full of people with wet clothes, blue faces, and clattering teeth.

"He banished us all outside, professors and students alike," Ginny informed her, wrapped inside a blanket with a large cup of hot cocoa in her hands. "I swear, he had summoned that huge load of snow there just for that purpose."

Hermione gave the girl a sympathetic look.

"You didn't happen to see Ron on your way up here?" she asked.

"No," Ginny shook her head. "Although if he did pass us, I might have very well missed it in my current frozen state."

"Oh," she sounded a bit disappointed. "I'll just look around then. See you later, Gin. Keep yourself warm!"

"If you had spent a good ten minutes trying to escape a big pile of snow and struggling screeching people, you wouldn't be quite that cheerful," the redhead muttered under her breath, sipping her hot cocoa.

Ron was not in the library. Hermione wondered why on earth had she even looked there.

---

"If you dare say I was too harsh on them, I'll throw acetone at you, Albus," Moody growled, striding through the long hallways of the castle as fast as his wooden leg allowed.

"You should know that magic paint is not quite that weak, dear friend," Dumbledore chuckled, ducking quickly away from the angry looking buffalo on the portrait of wizard Baruffio.

"They deserved it for all that bickering. Really, they sounded like an old married couple."

"You still shouldn't have told them that," Albus twinkled.

"But it worked," Moody announced victoriously. "I don't think I have ever seen Snape quite that green in the face, or McGonagall's jaw hanging open that wide."

"Yes, that was quite a sight," Dumbledore had to agree. "Still, it's not solely their fault their champions acted like that. Mr. Weasley and Mr. Malfoy are carrying part of the blame as well, and the bigger part, if you don't mind me telling that."

"Of course they are," Moody said gruffly. "And I'll show them how to break rules at my reign when I get my hands on them."

"Aren't you taking all this a bit too serious, dear friend?" Albus sounded a bit concerned, although not so much for his friend as for the two finalists. "It's just a game, after all."

"Of course it's just a game!" Moody shouted. "Nothing but a simple board game. But they still have to abide by the rules."

---

Hermione was running down the hallway.

"Have you seen Ron?" she asked from every student, teacher, ghost or portrait on her way.

No one had seen him, but they were rather intent on getting the latest gossip out of her. Both those who had been present in Ravenclaw Tower and those who hadn't were certain that as his second Hermione must have **some** information about Ron's departure.

"Was it planned?"

"He was going to lose, wasn't he?"

"It served the Slytherins right, didn't it?"

"Is he having a secret affair with Malfoy?"

"No," Hermione fumed. "He isn't. And the next person asking me a stupid question will find out that Moody's anger is nothing compared to mine."

"Yeah, right," someone mumbled.

"Yeah, right, indeed!" Hermione screeched. "I fought in the war! I fought against Voldemort! And if you think that I cannot handle a bunch of insolent kids making stupid remarks and asking idiotic questions, then there's more than one surprise coming for you!!!"

"Threatening students, Granger? What a very suitable behaviour for our beloved Head Girl."

She didn't have to turn around to his ugly (or perhaps not that ugly) face to know who had spoken to her.

"Oh, shut up, Malfoy, this is all your fault," she wanted to say, but once she opened her mouth, something quite different came out.

"Have you seen Ron?"

Although a bit surprised at her lack of insults, he swiftly adopted the same polite attitude.

"Not since he stormed out of the common room."

"Damn!" Hermione cursed. "I have searched through the whole castle and he has been nowhere. And no one has seen him either."

"He might be outside," Draco suggested.

"In this weather, I doubt it," she looked pointedly at the window, which was completely frosted over.

"Kitchens?"

Now Hermione turned and looked at him as if she had never seen him before. She had.

"Great idea, Malfoy. Thanks."

It was on the stairs between floor four and three when Hermione noticed that Malfoy was following her.

"Just fancy a bite," he shrugged under her narrowed eyes, and although she did not believe him, she still let him come.

---

Ron was not in the kitchen either. But Harry and Neville were, enjoying a cheese and ham sandwich and large cups of steaming cocoa. They looked up when the door opened, and whatever had been on Harry's mind as he raised his hand and opened his mouth to greet her died immediately as he noticed her companion.

The expected question of "Hermione, what are you doing with Malfoy?" came from Neville instead, but she ignored it.

"Has either of you seen Ron?" she inquired instead.

"No, have you spoken to him, Hermione? Is he still angry? What about the game? They won't disqualify him, will they?"

"Only over Professor McGonagall's dead body," Hermione muttered under her breath, and Draco, the only one standing close enough to hear, smiled at that.

"I have to find him," she told his friends, and left the kitchen with Malfoy.

"I thought you were hungry," she smirked, hearing his footsteps behind her.

"Not **that** hungry," he replied, and she snickered, knowing it wouldn't be too healthy for him to be in the room alone with her two friends.

"Now what?" Hermione asked once they had reached the Entrance Hall again. "I've looked everywhere for him. Perhaps I should go find McGonagall instead? Even Snape might do."

"How very kind of you to think that highly of me, Miss Granger," the Devil drawled, ascending the staircase leading up from the dungeons.

"Professor Snape, sir," Hermione said quickly.

"I hear your man is still on the loose," he commented. "Can't keep him too well?"

An angry blush crept onto her cheeks, and she couldn't help but retorting back, knowing full well what an angry Snape could do and how angry he had to be at the moment.

"And where's your other half, sir?" she spoke politely, and at his confused look, elaborated. "Professor McGonagall, I mean."

The greenness of his face suited the Head of Slytherin rather well. And when it came to Snape, few things made him look worse than he already was.

Instinctively Hermione stepped closer to Malfoy, knowing that if Snape was going to blow up, he would not harm his own player. With surprise she noticed he didn't move away from her.

"Can't keep your own woman, Severus?" Moody's voice suddenly boomed through the hall, catching the attention of a few wandering students, who, after a moment of shock, smiled at this completely new piece of gossip.

Snape looked like he couldn't decide who he would rather attack – Hermione or Moody, but since Hermione was standing too close to Draco, and Moody had his wand out, he picked neither. For now.

"You two have some explaining to do," the Auror addressed the two students. "You better come too, Severus, unless Minerva is waiting for you?"

Still sickly green, he shook his head, and all three followed Moody into the closest classroom.

"I'm the Arbiter, my word is law  
From square one I'm watching you,"

He grinned evilly and locked the door behind them.

* * *

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	10. A Model of Decorum and Tranquillity

**Note: **Sorry for the longer than usual wait. I could explain, but since it would have quite a lot to do with my laziness, I better not. ;) Instead, let me say that I adore, love, and worship this chapter. In my opinion, it's one of the funniest and greatest chapters of this story. And since it's not my chapter, I can praise it all I want. :D Happy reading!**  
**

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**Chess**

**Quartet — A Model of Decorum and Tranquillity**

The door closed with a click and Moody took his time to turn around ever so slowly, his magic eye fixed on his companions even when he was with his back towards them. He could almost feel the fear the others had for him, and he liked that feeling.

"Now… I feel I need to tell you a thing or two that might have been left unclear originally," Moody said, almost cackling. He wasn't doing this because he was truly angry, he was doing it just to let them all see that no one should mess with him, and that all rules were made up for the lesser people to abide by them.

"Actually," he continued, "I suppose we all have a thing or two to say." His uneven gaze stopped on Snape whose green facial hue had almost faded already, but now returned in full force.

"There is nothing between me and professor McGonagall!" Snape declared icily.

"Oh, getting formal again, aren't we?" Moody smirked. "So you have nothing to say? Good, let's move on," and he turned towards Hermione.

Hermione had opened her mouth already, when Snape decided to interfere.

"Of course I have something to say! Mr. Weasley acted no better than a clown today! So I'm sure I'm not wrong when I say the following on behalf of all the Slytherins, or actually all those who care about the noble game of chess!

"We wish, no must, make our disgust at this abuse perfectly clear.  
We're here for chess. Are those bitches?"

"Hey!" Hermione shouted at that when Snape motioned towards her.

"If so, why foul the atmosphere?" Snape finished, glaring at the Head Girl.

"I must protest – our delegation has a host of valid points to raise!  
Our player's sporting attitude's beyond all praise  
As any neutral would attest."

"Yeah, sure," Snape whispered under breath.

"But we concede the fact his masters bend the rules is not a player's fault—"

Malfoy smirked to Hermione at that, giving her a mock bow and a swift sardonic, "Thanks!"

"We'll overlook their crude political assault and under protest will proceed."

This seemed to be too much for Snape because he crabbed hold of Hermione's arm and yanked it, making her turn to him. Moody, at the same time, did his best to step between them, but didn't manage to do anything but get entangled in his robes and almost fall over. Malfoy, simultaneously, receded into a corner of the room, hoping nobody would notice him.

"Let go of me," Hermione screeched to Snape while Moody regained his balance.

"If your man's so sweet  
Then why his fighting talk?  
If he's not a cheat  
Then why on earth  
Did he go take a walk?

"Why let him loose?  
He'll soon reduce  
This great event  
To a brawl!" Snape hissed to Hermione.

Moody was doing his best to get the situation under his control again.

"I call this tune  
No one's immune  
To my power  
In that hall!" he shouted, thumping his wooden leg at the same time.

Hermione was not listening to Moody. She would have given anything to not be listening to Snape, either, but the latter was standing too close to her and hissing his words in her ear so that bits of his spit hit her in the face now and then, and there was no hope of escaping the meaning behind his words.

But Hermione had her answer ready.

"I am not surprised  
He wanted fresher air  
Once he realized  
There was no hope  
Of your lot playing fair!"

"What? Us, not playing fair?" Malfoy asked in surprise from where he was sitting on a desk at the far corner of the room, completely forgetting why he had gone there in the first place. Now the three other people turned their eyes to him, every single one of them angry at him.

"Right, Draco," Snape said after a moment of staring at him, deciding that being angry at his own champion would be a waste of absolutely perfect anger. "I personally think it was your player that was cheating!"

"But I saw how you wanted to give him instructions on his moves!" Hermione pointed her finger accusingly at Snape. When she realised it was a professor she was attacking, it was already too late, and she decided it wouldn't change anything anyhow if she backed out at that point.

"You're completely demolishing the point behind this Chess Tournament!" Moody bellowed, and as they didn't know him very closely, it sounded to them as if he really was close to devastation.

"It's very sad  
To see the ancient and  
Distinguished game  
That used to be  
A model of decorum and tranquillity  
Become like any other sport  
A battleground for rival ideologies  
To slug it out with glee," Snape and Hermione commented dryly.

They were too distracted to notice they were saying the same words at the same time about the same thing, both doing their best to fill every syllable with as much sarcasm as they managed. When they finished they found both Moody and Malfoy looking at them, surprise evident in both the face that was smoothed to perfection, and the one that would make mothers want to hide their children in cupboards when met in a shadowy street.

"Miss Granger," Snape hissed, getting his speech back quicker than Hermione, "you have absolutely no right to steal my words and ideas. Twenty points from Gryffindor!"

"Take that!" Malfoy added from where he was perched on a desk.

"Mr. Malfoy, thirty points from Slytherin for unsuitable behaviour in a classroom!" Hermione shouted quickly.

"Miss Granger, fifty points from Gryffindor for shouting on school premises," Snape retorted.

This time Malfoy refrained from commenting, choosing to turn his face away from the others and look out of the window into the swirling snow, joggling his legs.

"Mr. Malfoy, fifty points from Slytherin for continuous unsuitable behaviour in a classroom," Hermione said in a level voice after a moment of thought.

"Miss Granger, seventy points from Gryffindor for breaking the Head Girl codex and wearing House colours," Snape said, finding finally something to take points for, referring to the thin red ribbon Hermione had used to tie her hair back.

Hermione quickly turned towards Malfoy who was still sitting on the desk. But this time Snape beat her to that.

"And get off the bloody desk, you dolt," he almost screamed, stomping to Malfoy in a rapid stride. Malfoy bleached in his face, then jumped quickly off the table, but he landed unfortunately at the same place a chair was standing, therefore lost his balance and, hands flying wildly around him collapsed on the floor, one of his fists bumping heavily into Snape's leg.

"Malfoy, that's a hundred house points from Slytherin for physically attacking a professor!" Hermione said before either the student or his Head of House realised what was going on.

"ENOUGH!" someone suddenly bellowed, and everyone turned to Moody whose presence in the room they seemed to have momentarily forgotten. "It's nice to see you bicker," he said, internally adding that he really had enjoyed watching the tennis match between Hermione and Snape, and added, "but I personally am here because of the Chess Championship. If none of you has anything further to say about that—"

"I have," Malfoy said, hoisting himself up from the floor.

"I would say with regard to  
Him it is hard to rebut  
Ever-growing suspicions  
My opposition's a nut."

Snape nodded quickly, the unintentional punch he had just received from his champion forgotten already.

"We wish, no must, make our disgust  
At this abuse perfectly clear  
We're here for chess, are those bitches?  
If so, why foul the atmosphere?" he repeated his words from the earlier, sending hopeful glances to Hermione to see whether she would react the same way this time.

But Hermione kept her cool, or at least managed to control herself better this time. The look in her eyes, though, when she opened her mouth, was fierce enough to make Moody start reprimanding them.

"I must insist  
That you desist  
If you value  
Your livelihood!" Moody said, but unfortunately no one heard him, for Hermione's voice was louder.

"I don't suppose  
You'd understand the strain  
And pressure getting where he's got  
For then you'd simply call him highly strung and not  
Imply that he was one of those," Hermione jumped to the defence of his boyfriend.

Up until this point she actually hadn't let her brain notice the fact that Ron was valuing chess more than her, but now it hit her like a Muggle brick at Hogwarts dungeons. She sent one disoriented look around, briefly wondering if Ron actually would be more insulted about what had been said there about playing chess or what Snape had called her. She let her mind decide that she was still more important to her boyfriend, mentally filing away a complaint, a promise to think it thoroughly over once she was not in that particular company.

Malfoy seemed to have noticed her indecision because, having made sure that Moody and Snape were engaged in a shouting match of their own, he rounded up on Hermione with a superior look on his face.

"But how can you  
Work for one who  
Treats you like dirt?  
Pay must be good," he said.

"Or rather, I can't see where he'd get the money for that… I suppose there's something else he gives you that no one else is low enough to give," he hinted with a sneer.

Hermione fumed.

"I'm not getting rich  
My only interest  
Is in something which  
Gives me the chance  
Of working with the best," Hermione retorted quickly, choosing to ignore the last comment.

"I can only say  
I hope your dream comes true  
Till that far-off day  
I hope you cope  
With helping number two."

Malfoy had now bowed so close to Hermione that she could feel his breath on her cheeks as he insulted her. She looked in his eyes, cold and calculating, a new burst of anger rising in her chest.

At the same time Moody had cornered Snape almost as thoroughly as Malfoy had cornered Hermione.

"It seems to us  
There's little point in waiting here  
All night for his return  
And since a peaceful match is our sole concern  
We won't make an official fuss  
In short we rise  
Above that guy's  
Tantrums, dramas,  
Dirty tricks," Snape said, his voice shivering a bit, trying to move away from the piercing blue gaze Moody was giving him.

But Moody wasn't so easily distracted.

"Get this straight, I  
Will not stand by  
While you play at  
Politics," he said, his look forcing Snape to nod.

"How sad to see  
What used to be  
A model of decorum and tranquillity  
Become like any other sport  
A battleground for rival ideologies  
To slug it out with glee!" they all repeated

Moody stepped away from Snape, letting a quick smile move over his face, and the professor leaned on a wall, panting a little. Malfoy turned his back to Hermione and walked over to his Head of House, stopping next to him and standing there like a post. Hermione stood up straight as well, now on the other side of the aisle from the others.

"Bitch!" Malfoy mouthed to Hermione, not a sound escaping from between his lips.

"Boy!" Hermione retorted just as silently.

"Second!" Malfoy mouthed, growing red in his face.

"Ferret!"

"Golden Girl!"

"Snake!" Hermione didn't give in.

"Enough of this biased waffle!" Moody bellowed. He was standing so that it was clear he had seen every word that had not been said, and it was just as clear he didn't like the turn the things had taken. "You, both, listen up! If the players do not return to the Ravenclaw common room within 24 hours, the match is null and void — the game is greater than its players."

With that he turned, opened the door, showed Malfoy, who was looking as if he was about to start a Muggle duel with Hermione, out of the room, and left after him, leaving the door open for others to follow.

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	11. Hermione and Snape

**Chess**

**Chapter 11: Hermione and Snape**

Once Malfoy was gone, Hermione let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding. She was so angry at him for all the awful things he had said, and yet, somehow it hurt a bit more than it should have. After all, they had been enemies for many years, and she should have been used to his insults. And she was. Yet they still hurt. 'Truth hurts' was a saying as old as time itself, and again she wondered whether this was the case. Was this the reason behind his words sending a painful jolt through her heart – that they were true?

She knew she shouldn't be doubting Ron like this, it wasn't something good girlfriends did, but it was getting harder and harder for her to be secure about her relationship with him, especially if it was his doing getting her into situations like this one.

With a heavy sigh, Hermione looked around in the empty room, only to find it not at all as empty as she would have preferred. Professor Snape, the man who had just insulted her in hundreds of different ways, was standing by the wall with his arms crossed, giving her a look that spoke volumes and none of the things it was saying could be considered nice.

"The game is greater than its players, Miss Granger - how true!" he declared coldly, and even though he said it in plural, it was more than obvious that he had only one player in mind.

There were few things she wanted more at the moment than to turn her back on him and walk out of the room. But she couldn't give him the satisfaction of having scared her away. Snape had never been too kind (or just kind) to Gryffindors, but now it was not about the Houses anymore. This was personal. Perhaps he would have done it to anyone else in her place – she didn't know it. But what she did know was that he had done it to her, and Professor or no Professor, she was determined to come out of this situation, whatever it was, as the winner.

So instead of fleeing the room in tears, Hermione stood up straight, lifted her chin, and fixed him with an icy glare of her own.

Clearly displeased at such turn of events, Snape scowled at her darkly, but fortunately kept his place, leaving her at least the comfort of some space between them.

"I don't know how you can allow this  
Harm to be done to chess, and how this  
Baby of yours can be persuaded  
Back to the game."

"Easy," she replied, her voice challenging. "You stop playing politics and you start playing chess."

Snape graced her with his I-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about-and-even-if-I-do-it's-still-pure-rubbish look.

Even though she would have liked to stick to her current polite tone and not fall to his level, Hermione realized she had to say some sharper words to make him respond.

"I don't know how you have the gall to  
Criticise us when it is all too  
Obvious this is what you wanted -  
We get the blame," she spoke fiercely, then willed her voice calm again.

"Your man, following orders, was up to some sort of bust-up from the word go," she stated simply, watching him carefully for a reaction. And a reaction she got.

"You really are mad! He has no orders!  
Now let me put my cards upon your table  
If he is aggrieved then who can blame him?  
He is up against a man who's less than stable."

"Ronald, less than stable?" Hermione asked, her tone indicating she had never heard of anything sillier ever before, even though internally she had to admit that Ron tended to get a bit crazy sometimes. But she was not going to tell Snape this!

"You're goading him," she said instead.

"Who asked for pumpkin juice first then?  
Who jumped up, yelled and cursed then?  
Sneered, insulted, and shouted?  
Then left the room!

"Your precious boy!"

Saying all this she knew it wasn't 100 percent true as Malfoy hadn't gone as far as cursing (at least not aloud; but as he probably did it silently, and she had not specified how he had cursed, she wasn't lying), but just as she had expected, Snape was too angry to notice that little error of hers.

"Chicken egg!" he shouted instead, and Hermione furrowed a brow in confusion, wondering whether he had actually lost it, until she suddenly realized what he had wanted to say and had to gather all her strength not to burst out laughing.

"Goose egg," she corrected coolly, relishing the dark look in his eyes as he realized he had just made a complete fool of himself.

"Goose egg," Snape repeated, looking like he very much wanted to hex her on the spot, "compared with the neurotic behavior of Weasley."

"Listen, you Slytherinish spawn  
We can keep this up till the dawn  
But there's the game that needs to be played  
So we better talk."

For one glorious moment Snape was too shocked to say a thing, and Hermione committed his incredulous expression as well as his silently moving mouth to her memory for ever, as the moment she had achieved victory (short-term, but still) over the nasty Professor. Oh, Harry was going to be so proud of her!

"100 points from Gryffindor for insulting a Professor!" he then barked, and just like that her little moment was over. It was still worth it though, her rebellious part was saying, as the rational Head Girl admonished her for not keeping her mouth shut.

Right now, Hermione favoured her rebellious side, so she simply smirked at that, risking the loss of even more housepoints for her disrespective behaviour.

But Snape was either still too shocked at her daring demeanor, or he had realized she was right because his next words were something she had not expected in a billion of years.

"I wish, Hermine," he said, and actually managed a smile, even though it was forced and crooked.

"Hermi-o-ne," she corrected him again, this time in an attempt to hide her own surprise.

"You would refrain from cheap personal jibes at a time when cooperation between us is vital," he continued, ignoring her remark. "Besides, I thought you would be reluctant to insult fellow half-blood wizards."

"Fellow half-blood wizards! I am a Muggle-born. Remember Muggles? Those people trying to live with us in peace, only to have monsters like you and your precious Lord crush and murder them in their own homes-

And you call yourself a fellow half-blood wizard!"

Hermione felt she was losing it herself. If not her sanity, than at least her temper. She had to force herself not to draw her wand and hex the Professor into next millennium.

What she didn't know was that Snape was thinking the exact same thoughts at the moment. Perhaps it hadn't been the nicest move to bring up bloodlines, but to have the girl talk about his dark past like she was commenting about the weather! Taking away house points didn't seem a punishment bad enough, but the worse thing about the whole situation was that she was speaking the truth.

Since Snape had no wish to be thrown into Azkaban for the murder of his student, he simply shook those thoughts away – as a skilled Occlument he could do so easily.

"Come now, Miss Granger, we're digressing  
Back to the point, let's start addressing  
All our attention to the Hogwarts Championship."

Hermione, still fuming in rage, took a moment to calm down, and get her mind back to chess. Once there, she thought about it for a while, going through the various possible courses of action they could take, and at last choosing the most logical, even though she knew Ron would not appreciate it.

"The Hogwarts library - famous for its peace and tranquility - that's where I want you to deliver me one Slytherin Finalist," she announced. "Let's say 5 o'clock."

Snape nodded in understanding and agreement, then swept out of the room, leaving her finally to the blessed silence and privacy.

---

Hermione moved to the window and stared at the patterns of frost on its surface. Things had not gone quite as she had wanted, but at least something had resulted from all this yelling and insulting. For one, she had managed to lose 100 points. For another, she somehow had to convince Ron to meet with Malfoy in the library and discuss the game without killing each other or storming out of the room.

Oh, this whole situation was such a mess. And she had managed to get herself right into the centre of this mess.

---

After some twenty minutes of wondering how to persuade his boyfriend and get them all out of this mess, thinking whether this whole Chess Championship was a huge mistake since now not only Gryffindor and Slytherin were fighting but Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as well, and simply staring at the flowers of ice on the windows, Hermione decided that she could really do with a warm fire and hot cup of cocoa in the cozy Gryffindor common room.

The scene that opened up before her as she had entered through the portrait hole, however, was not something her exhausted mind was ready to comprehend at the moment.

The common room was unusually empty, having only two occupants – Ron and McGonagall, the former sitting in an armchair near the fireplace, and the latter standing in front of him, and exasperated look on her face.

"For Merlin's sake - be reasonable!" McGonagall was saying, although instead of the normal strictness, her tone seemed more like pleading.

"Two thousand housepoints," Ron said with cold calmness.

"Why should we prize you to show us your tantrums?  
We prefer to see chess being played," she tried to reason and reprimand him at the same time. It didn't seem to be working.

Throwing her hands up in defeat, McGonagall turned to leave, only now noticing Hermione standing there.

"You can deal with him - he's getting heated  
Now he's claiming that he's underpaid," the Headmistress told the girl on her way out.

Everyone seemed to think that it was Hermione's job to bring Ron back to reason. Perhaps she really should have let Harry be his second. Although she doubted it would have changed anything. She was still his girlfriend, after all.

"I said, two thousand housepoints - a game!" he shouted after McGonagall, who had already left.

Noticing that, Ron turned his ire against the only other person left in the room, who happened to be his own girlfriend and second.

"And as for you  
I shouldn't have to be dealing with Minerva  
Where were you when the shit hit the fan?"

Hermione let his vulgar expression pass, mainly because she was too surprised at his calling Headmistress and Professor McGonagall by her first name, not to mention his earlier demand of more housepoints from her. And if this hadn't been shocking enough, which it definitely had, there was also the fact that instead telling him off for his obvious disrespect, McGonagall had behaved... very oddly.

For the moment, she had completely forgotten having called Professor Snape a Slytherinish spawn.

"Saving your housepoints by fixing a meeting  
So you better start liking the man!" she answered indignantly, hurt by his snapping at her.

"What are you talking about?" Ron demanded.

"If you want to continue this game, and have the chance to win it, you are going to meet with Malfoy tonight at 5 o'clock in the library," she told him.

"When the interest is bigger than ever  
And my walk-out my smartest move yet  
All you say is that I ought to meet him  
Between stupid book-shelves?"

"You bet!" Hermione affirmed.

"Can't you see that you're losing your grip, dear  
Are the Slytherins fooling you too?  
Why should I be the only one trying..."


	12. 1976: Wizard Race is Rising

**Chess**

**1976 — Wizard Race is Rising**

"You wanna lose your only friend?  
Well, keep it up, you're doing fine!"

Hermione was red in the face as she shouted that, her hair surrounding her head like a wild bush.

For a moment Ron looked taken aback by her fierce reply, but in a second he banished the look of confusion from his face.

"You? A friend?" he retorted. "You don't act like one. As far as I know friends support each other, and don't do their best to start arguments at any given moment!"

"And that's my fault, I suppose?" Hermione answered.

"Besides," Ron said, changing the subject, seemingly at loss about what to answer to Hermione. "Harry has always been my friend, too, and we'll be best friends forever! He doesn't run off to spend time with others just like that!"

"Really? Then tell me why your best friend wasn't watching your match today! And why is he sitting in the kitchens right now with Neville, drinking hot chocolate and playing a nice, friendly, **peaceful** game of chess with chessmen that look like you and Malfoy would after having taken some spoilt Polyjuice Potion!"

"Neville's not a Slytherin!" Ron shouted, then thought for a moment. "They are?"

"Yes, they are!" Hermione shouted back.

"You're lying! You just can't take it that you're not as good a friend as he is!" Ron spat at her.

Hermione felt tears springing into her eyes, and she almost started punching Ron in fury.

"Besides, if I remember correctly, it was you that drank Polyjuice Potion with a cat hair in it! So don't go blaming your faults on others!"

"That was my fault, now? It was a human mistake!"

"Well, whose mistake do you think it was then? Bulstrode's? Of course, how can I be so stupid; she should have told you after you fought with her in the Duelling Club that in case you had taken a hair from her robes and were planning to use it in a forbidden potion you should be careful because she had a cat! Naturally it was all Bulstrode's fault!" Ron shouted sardonically.

"Why this humiliation?  
Why treat me like a fool?  
I've taken shit for seven years  
And I won't take it anymore!"

"Now it's me humiliating you, isn't it? May I remind you that I'm the chess champion here!"

"You're not the champion yet! You must beat Malfoy first!" Hermione replied.

"Malfoy? Piece of cake! He's just a cheating bastard, a Slyherinish spawn," Ron said in an offhand way.

Hermione almost choked on air hearing Ron use the very words she had used earlier, though the Slytherin they were insulting was different. But she quickly drowned the though, and turned her anger towards Ron again.

"You have no right to call him names, what with how you're acting yourself!"

"I'm only teasing Slytherins  
With gentle bonhomie  
And you've a better reason  
To be anti-them than me," Ron said.

"There's a time and there's a place!" Hermione spat acidly.

"Well how about here and now? Are you for me or for them?" Ron asked.

"There's a time and there's a place," Hermione repeated.

"1976 — Wizard race is rising  
1976 — Wizard race is fighting," Ron started in a low menacing whisper.

"What? That's when Voldemort became a general threat, wasn't it? That has nothing to do with chess!"

"Voldemort has something to do with everything!"

"And now it's 'wizard race' for you, I see," Hermione said. "Not 'Voldemort' or 'pure-blood pig-heads' as it used to be. What's gotten into you!"

"Well, you might not understand, but maybe I'm a **little** under pressure here! And maybe I have a responsibility to win for my house, my family; for my **girlfriend**!"

Ron was as close to Hermione now as Malfoy had been just some minutes ago. Hermione felt his breath now brushing over her face; saw the pure, fiery, depressive anger in his eyes. There was nothing even resembling the cold calculation she had seen in Malfoy's eyes, instead she saw burning passion.

Out of nowhere she suddenly remembered what she had pondered earlier — was that passion for her or for chess? Now, standing here, only inches away from her boyfriend, she was convinced that she was so much more that a stupid game, and that there was no way Ron could value playing chess more than being with her.

"I'm sorry," Hermione said suddenly in a silent voice, tears now freely streaming down her cheeks. "Of course you're under pressure."

Ron seemed to feel uncomfortable. It was as if he had preferred a fighting and shouting Hermione to that crying Hermione.

He sighed. "It's just—

"I'd have thought you'd support  
Any attack on these people  
On the people who ran  
Mindlessly over your lineage."

"Please," Hermione whispered, "let's try to keep blood out of this all."

"Why should we if they don't?"

"Please, for my sake!"

"Don't let them fool you for  
Twenty years on they're the same."

"I'm not being fooled," Hermione insisted silently. "I just— I mean Dumbledore started this tournament to promote inter-house unity, but look at us now!" She laughed mirthlessly. "It's crazy around here! Before it was just between Slytherin and Gryffindor, or rather Slytherin and the rest, but now look at how Susan has been glaring at Michael every time they meet, and how Madam Pomfrey is trying to event a potion against all those new variations of the skin-colouring potions… And to top it all this Chess Championship is driving us apart intra-house, as well."

Ron stepped closer to his girlfriend and gave her a comforting hug.

"Besides," Hermione added, "I'm really tired of everyone bringing up the blood purity issue, as I already said. I mean, Voldemort is dead!"

"I know, I know," Ron patted her on her back awkwardly, then let her go of his embrace. "But that's the problem. They can't acknowledge their defeat. And as for our side still angry with them — we have every right for that after all they did. And old habits die hard."

"Believe me, this will one day be the downfall of all wizardry!" Hermione insisted with fierceness in her voice again. Then she mimicked Ron from earlier.

"1976 — Wizard race is falling  
1976 — Wizard race is dying."

Ron smiled quietly, to which Hermione answered by curving her lips, too.

"They see chess as a war  
Playing with pawns just like Muggles—" Ron started, but his sentence was cut short by a slap from Hermione.

Clutching his red cheek, he looked at a suddenly fuming Hermione.

"What did I do? That was uncalled for!"

"How dare you say something like that!" Hermione shouted, raising her hand for another go.

"Something like what? I said nothing wrong!" Ron said, struggling to get hold of Hermione's both hands, but the latter was wriggling wildly, her hands flaying, so it was impossible for him to succeed, it was rather more probable that his nose would be punched broken in the process.

"How dare you say something like that about Muggles! I mean, compare them to pawns — useless pieces that can be used as shields, but when they've served their purpose can easily be disposed of…"

"I didn't mean—"

"I said I didn't want the blood issue to be brought up, not by anyone, and you just can't respect others' wishes!"

"Herms, I—"

"And what with your own father working for the protection of Muggles, I'd have thought you had more tact, at least." With that Hermione managed another slap at Ron.

"My father is using them just as much as those people you despise!" Ron shouted back, finally cracking again. "He just doesn't kill them, but he uses their brains, their— I don't know. But he just can't have them all dead because then he'd be out of job!"

Hermione felt her mouth fall open. Had Ron really just said that the only reason Arthur Weasley didn't prance around shooting killing curses at people was because then he'd be out of job? Her brain seemed to have forgotten working for a moment, and she didn't know how to answer. So she just turned away and walked towards the Portrait Hole.

"If you walk out on me  
They've got you like they got your Crookshanks!" Ron shouted after her.

"Your half-blooded cat," he added as an afterthought. "Were he alive now he'd surely be clawing your face!"

Hermione stopped with one of her legs already through the Hole, and turned to Ron.

"You really are more pathetic than I thought," she spat. "I know you hated him, but this is just ridiculous.

"You know that there's nothing I've done!  
That he has been clawing me my whole life!"

"So you finally own it that he's a cruel, savage beast!" Ron shouted victoriously.

Hermione pulled her leg back from the corridor and rounded up on Ron once again, her hand raised for further punishment on him, but this time Ron was ready and managed to get his grip on her hands firmly before she lost her self-control again. It was definitely difficult to look down on someone that was at least a head taller than she, but Hermione did the best she could, giving Ron a glare she thought that only Mrs. Weasley could possibly rival.

"You're a cruel, savage beast!" she said, her voice indicating she was past anger and maliciousness now, and that all that had remained was inconsolable sadness and disappointment.

Ron's fingers tightened the grip on her wrists and Hermione could feel his hands twitching, as if he wanted to hit her. But for some reason this time Ron restrained himself.

"I'd rather you left now," he said silently, but not managing to overpower the intense anger in his voice.

"This is my common room, so I'm not going anywhere," Hermione said, still in this impartial, solitary voice.

"I'll go myself, then," Ron said, fuming, but didn't let go of his girlfriend's arms.

"There's the meeting in the library at five o'clock," Hermione reminded him, and he felt a lump in his throat hearing her voice.

Ron didn't answer. Instead he finally released Hermione, who instantly fell into an armchair like a bundle of unhappiness. When he reached the portrait hole he looked back because Hermione hadn't reacted in any way after collapsing into the chair. He opened the Portrait with one hand, still hoping that Hermione would say something.

Finally his wish was granted.

"And don't call me Herms," Hermione said as desolately as it is humanly possible.

A moment later Ron's back had disappeared behind the Fat Lady. Now Hermione let her tears flow free. She jumped up from the armchair and flung her clenched fists towards the sight where Ron had just stood, her mouth moving silently, her voice failing her.

After a few long calming breaths her hands dropped back to her sides, and she managed to sit down politely in an armchair. She watched the flames crackling merrily in the fireplace, as if nothing had happened. Then the view was blurred. She brushed away the tears, angry at herself for being so weak, but they returned. For a brief moment she wondered where everyone was, but then her mind moved back to her own perfect day — shouting at Ron and Harry, shouting at innocent bystanders, shouting at Moody, shouting at Malfoy, shouting at Snape, and now shouting at Ron again. And the day was all but over.

"Why'd you have to do this to me!" she screamed suddenly, all her fury bursting out in this one sentence.

-----

**Note: **A nice simple equation to you all: longer reviews equal quicker updates. :D It's the same with more reviews, but we know that you can't review a chapter more than once. So make it long and juicy. Or make it short and dry. We'll update anyway. Not just that soon. :P


	13. Nobody's Side

**Note: **I love this song. :) It's one of my favourites.

-----

**Chess**

**Nobody's Side**

This was one of the moments Hermione really missed Crookshanks. He had been her pet, but he had been so much more – he had been her friend. And even though he had had a character of his own, he had always managed to sense whenever his mistress needed him, and come to her. Paddled up to her on his soft paws, jumped into her lap, perhaps clawed her a bit in the process (but only because that was his way of showing affection), laid his squashed flat orange face down and purred as she patted him. She would talk to him and he would meow in understanding. She could always count on her dear Crookshanks.

But now he was gone, dead or prisoned in some cold and dreadful dungeon. And no one was there to comfort Hermione as she was still crying, no one was there to pat her on the back and tell her everything was going to be fine. Not that Crookshanks had ever done the latter two, but his purring in her lap had been enough.

"What's going on around me  
Is barely making sense," she told the empty common room and merrily cracking flames. And it was truth – all the recent events were not alike to what was usually happening around her. Although it was not too uncommon for her to yell at Harry and Ron, and Malfoy for that matter, Moody and Snape were a very different thing. But that was not the worst – the worst was still Ron, and his words.

And everything had been going so well, or at least in the right direction. He had held her, and he had comforted her, and he had looked at her with a passion that in some situations would have made her blush, and he had told her he wanted to win the match for her. Everything had been so great, and then...

He had spoken those words without even realizing he had said something wrong. Had he really meant it? And all the things he had said after... He had been angry, of course, but she couldn't help but wonder. Was Ron really this prejudiced against Muggles? Had he been like this all the past seven years, or was it a new development?

"No, this can't be true," she stated firmly. "There has to be some mistake. Because..."

Because if it were true, Ron would be no better than Slytherins. In fact, he would be worse, for he would be a hypocrite as well. At least Slytherins let everybody know what they thought of Muggles.

"I need some explanations fast  
I see my present partner  
In the imperfect tense  
And I don't see how we can last  
I feel I need a change of cast."

She sighed. She really liked Ron, but sometimes, in times like these, she couldn't see them having any future other than constant yelling and fighting. And that was not her idea of happily ever after.

"Maybe I'm on nobody's side," she sobbed. _And nobody is on my side._

"Perhaps I'm overreacting," she spoke to the flames after a moment of thought. "But perhaps... I aren't."

The fire gave a loud crack, and Hermione found that a bit comforting. It was most pathetic to be talking to a fire without anyone's face in it, but that was all she had at the moment.

"And when he gives me reasons  
To justify each move  
They're getting harder to believe  
I know this can't continue  
I've still a lot to prove  
There must be more I could achieve  
But I don't have the nerve to leave.

"Because he is a good guy," she argued with herself. "Sometimes a bit rash and thoughtless and quick to anger, but his heart is in the right place. It's so awful of me to even be thinking these things... I'm a horrible person!

"But I don't want to be the one he always lets his anger out on... I don't want him to yell at me whenever he is under pressure... and not only yell, but say all these terrible things... I don't want to be the girl who stays with her boy no matter how badly he treats her.

"I am a person! I have feelings, too! I'm not just some... some... some pawn he could tell what to do and how to act and what to feel."

_Pawn. _

Hermione halted in her monologue.

..._pawns just like Muggles..._

Did he... no, no, he couldn't...

"He has never cared about my blood or heritage!" she announced fiercely, as if the fire or empty room had made that remark.

But then why couldn't he have dropped that issue like she had begged him to? Why couldn't he have just let go of it? Why did he have to keep mentioning it over and over and over again?

What was Ron playing at? Other than chess and her feelings.

"Everybody's playing the game  
But nobody's rules are the same  
Nobody's on nobody's side.  
Better learn to go it alone  
Recognize you're out on your own  
Nobody's on nobody's side."

And she really was out on her own. Ron had deserted her. Harry had deserted her. Even Ginny was nowhere around. She was all alone.

And she was getting angry again.

"Fine!" she declared. "Fine! If that's what he wants, then that's what he gets. It's time for him to learn that he cannot just tear my heart out and stomp on it, and later make it all up with one miserable apology. If he is not on my side, I won't be on his either!"

She sighed again, and realizing she had got up from her seat at one point without even noticing it, instead of sitting down again, Hermione walked over to the window.

The glass was frozen with flowers of ice as the weather had turned cold all of a sudden, as if it had known what this day would bring. Her breath left a misty spot on the window pane, but it didn't matter since she couldn't see through it anyway. She examined the beautiful patterns the frost had drawn upon the glass – so cold, yet so beautiful. It reminded her of something, or actually – someone.

"The one I should not think of  
Keeps rolling through my mind," she whispered to the ice.

A few moments ago she had been talking to the fire, and now she was talking to the ice. She was probably going crazy, especially with the thoughts currently running through her mind.

Why was she thinking of him of all the people? And, more importantly, why did the idea fill her with peace instead of hatred and anger?

"And I don't want to let that go," she found herself saying.

Because Ron had looked at her with such passion, and the ice-flowers were cold yet beautiful. And because she was drawn to the latter.

"It's official," Hermione decided. "I have gone insane. There really is no other explanation. I'm standing by the window, staring at the floral frost, and thinking about... or perhaps even dreaming about..."

She left her sentence unfinished. Saying it out aloud would have made it too final, too true, and she didn't know if she could have handled that at the moment.

"You are dreaming about who?" a voice asked, and Hermione couldn't help jumping into the air and letting out a short cry of surprise.

Once safely back on the ground, she wheeled around at top speed, to find Ginny standing there and smiling at her.

"Dreaming about my brother?" she asked, and Hermione couldn't help but blush.

Yet this was not good enough for Ginny, it seemed.

"Dreaming about someone else than my brother?" she ventured further, and once again Hermione could not help but blush deeper.

Ginny raised her brow at that, and Hermione realized she had better tell her something fast before she would take it the wrong way. (Which actually was the right way.)

"Who told you I was thinking about a person?" she said as calmly as she could manage.

"What else could you be thinking about?"

"Well, if you must really know, I was thinking about-" _Think, Hermione, think fast. _"-pancakes."

_Good going, Hermione, _she mentally rolled her eyes. _Smartest witch at Hogwarts, really?_

Ginny didn't seem to be buying her lame excuse one bit, and she couldn't really blame her.

"Pancakes?"

"Yes, pancakes," Hermione said, as it was too late to back out of it now. "I got this weird craving for pancakes. Just stood at the window, looked at the frost decorating it, and suddenly got this odd appetite for pancakes."

Ginny gave her a funny look. Hermione couldn't blame her for that either.

"But that's not so crazy at all," she spoke at last. "And there's no need for you to stand by the frozen window and dream about pancakes, when you can just go down into the kitchens and have some."

"You're absolutely right!" Hermione exclaimed. "I'll just go and do that. Bye! See you later!"

Once out of the common room, she was wondering through the hallways of Hogwarts. She had no wish to go down to the kitchens and watch Harry and Neville play chess; in fact, she had really had enough of chess for one day. Or at least for now, since there was still that meeting in the library.

Library. That's where she would have gone, but now it reminded her of what she didn't want to think about – mainly chess and Ron.

And as the idea of mindlessly roaming around in school didn't appeal to her either – mostly in fear of running into Snape, Moody, Ron, Malfoy or even McGonagall – she chose the only other option left.

---

Stepping outside she took a deep breath of freezing cold air and felt a shiver run through her body. Luckily, she had brought her wand with her, so that even though her cloak was still in her room up in Gryffindor Tower, a simple warming spell did the trick.

Of course, it didn't keep her from getting wet, she realized, having taken a single step away from the castle, and already managing to slip and end up in a pile of snow.

Thinking how this day couldn't get any worse, and then berating her for mentally speaking those jinxed words, Hermione finally realized the stupidity of lying in the snow, and stood up.

And saw something she dearly did not want to see. Or to be precise – somebody.

She shamelessly stared at him for a while, sure that he was too far away to notice her gaze upon him, until her brain caught up with her actions and she turned her head away.

But she couldn't keep herself from looking for too long.

"No lover's ever faithful  
No contract truly signed," she spoke into the freezing air, and blushed at her own thoughts.

_Am I really thinking what I think I'm thinking?_

"There's nothing certain left to know  
And how the cracks begin to show!" she exclaimed, finding her anger once more – at Ron for bringing this about, at herself for letting it happen, at Ginny for banishing her outside, and at Malfoy for deciding to take a stroll.

The whole world seemed to have turned against her suddenly.

"Never make a promise or plan  
Take a little love where you can  
Nobody's on nobody's side  
Never stay too long in your bed  
Never lose your heart, use your head  
Nobody's on nobody's side," the words stumbled out of her mouth, and this time she didn't even try to keep them back.

"Never take a stranger's advice  
Never let a friend fool you twice  
Nobody's on nobody's side  
Never be the first to believe  
Never be the last to deceive  
Nobody's on nobody's side.

"Never leave a moment too soon  
Never waste a hot afternoon  
Nobody's on nobody's side  
Never stay a minute too long  
Don't forget the best will go wrong  
Nobody's on nobody's side."

"I'll show them all," she promised herself, not sure who she was talking about, or what she was going to show them.

"Better learn to go it alone  
Recognize you're out on your own  
Nobody's on nobody's side."

With a determined look on her face, she turned to go back inside, not let this stupid Chess Tournament scare her away from her beloved library and spend the rest of her time until the meeting doing her homework or reading some book.

She also completely ignored the part of her mind which was telling her that this time she had **not** been out on her own.

* * *

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	14. Library Duet

**Note: **Did someone order romance? Here you go. ;)**  
**

* * *

**Chess**

**Library Duet**

Half way to the library Hermione suddenly changed her mind and sat down at a window instead. She didn't know whether it was a recent trait in her to be so undecided in her actions, or whether she had been like that before, but right now she kind of enjoyed surprising even herself with her sudden actions, the results of which she didn't even bother to think out clearly.

Hermione watched the small blue flame wobble on the window ledge, and listened to the Great Clock chime four times. She still had a whole hour before the meeting in the library. She hoped with all her might that, against all odds, Ron would still show up and prove the fact that he actually had some intelligence, however little.

But right now, with a whole hour to go, she heard her stomach grumble, and she realised she hadn't had a bite for the whole day, having been too nervous at breakfast, and too preoccupied during the lunch. So she closed the flame into a vial she carried with her at all times, and made her way slowly to the kitchens. When she reached her destination she was glad to find that Harry and Neville had already left. She really didn't want to act sociable at that very moment.

She just let the house-elves bring her some sandwiches and pumpkin juice, this time not even bothering to lecture them into wanting to run away from Hogwarts. Munching on her food she sat there, deep in thought.

-----

At the same time, Ron was in the opposite side of the castle. After escaping the Gryffindor Tower he had run upwards and upwards, not paying any attention to his direction, until he ended up in an alcove at the end of a desolate corridor that had no portraits diversifying its bare walls, no suits of armour to fill its emptiness, not even any doors along the walls. There was just one window in the alcove at the far end of the corridor, looking over the yard in front of the castle, but glazed over with icy ferns the frost had painted there.

He sat down there and directed a warm air spell at the window to melt the intricate flowery pattern, and make it possible to see outside. He sat there, looking at a lone figure walking in the snow, bent double to fight the strong wind, covering his face to avoid the flying crystals of ice.

Some time later another one exited the castle, and with a pang of guilt he recognised Hermione. He saw her do a spell on herself, probably a warming spell for she wasn't wearing a cloak. He saw her take a few gentle steps away from the castle and fall over in the snow. He saw her stand up, and then stare quite impolitely at the other person, as if she had recognised him and couldn't believe her eyes. That made Ron turn towards the other, too, but try as he might he couldn't make out who that was.

When Ron finally turned his gaze towards Hermione again, she had vanished.

He heard the clock chime four as he hoisted himself up from the window ledge. He had decided to go to the library as Hermione had asked him to, just so they could forget their row, and not let chess get between them. Deep in thought he walked through the castle, not even paying any attention to the fact that he met no one on his way from high in the towers to the first floor. Even the library was deserted when he reached it, he couldn't even see Pince anywhere.

Quite determined to wait for the others to show up, he grabbed a book from the shelves, not for reading but just to stare at while thinking about the situation which he had ended himself up in.

_Introductory History of Pure-Blood Supremacy_ the cover of the heavy book read, and Ron almost snorted in irony when he noticed that. Still, he plopped it down on a desk and opened it somewhere in the middle, the year 1473 written in the header of that page.

Minutes passed and he didn't even notice when he started to actually read the book instead of just looking at the pictures and blankly leafing through it. He had reached the year 1542 already, when someone interrupted him.

"Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said silently, catching his attention. "I would like to have a word with you."

Ron noticed she looked a bit pale, and there was a kind of resigned tone to her voice.

"Yes, professor," he said, jumping up from his seat and closing the book with a bang. He saw Hermione behind the bookshelves some distance from them, and gave the Headmistress a questioning look.

"In my office, please," McGonagall said briskly, but the strange resigned edge was still noticeable.

-----

At five minutes to five Hermione made her way to her favourite place in Hogwarts, the library. She wondered whether Draco was there already, whether Ron would come, whether she could persuade them to forget their enmity and pride, and play chess.

She felt her heart jump with joy when she saw Ron reading a book, waiting for the others to arrive. She almost ran to him to hug and kiss him for coming, but then she remembered what he had said earlier, and decided she wouldn't do anything before he apologised. So she walked away from him, holding her head high, and positioned herself between the bookshelves in a way that would make it certain that Ron would notice her when raising his glance from the book.

She almost jumped in fright when she heard Ron bang his book shut, and then waited tensely for him to approach her from behind, and start a conversation with her. But nobody came.

When she had waited a minute or two she turned around, only to realise that Ron was nowhere to be seen. She started walking this way and that, searching the aisles for her boyfriend, panic slowly catching up with her. At the same moment that she had made sure that Ron had really left the library, she saw Malfoy enter, casting a searching look around himself.

"This is the one situation  
I wanted most to avoid  
Nothing I say will convince him this isn't a trick," she muttered to herself.

The clock chimed five. Hermione locked her gaze with Malfoy for an instant, and smiled nervously as a greeting. Malfoy nodded, turning away from her to look for Ron. Hermione quickly retreated between the bookshelves, before he could notice where she went.

Malfoy was surprised not to find Ron. When he looked back, he saw that Hermione had disappeared, too. He let his finger brush over the backs of the heavy tomes on a shelf.

"This sanctuary of minds —  
I relax, she smiles  
There's something peculiar going on," he wondered silently.

Hermione, at the same time, was some shelves away, breathing nervously, the books around her failing to comfort her this time.

"So, through my own stupid fault,  
I'm stuck here to carry the can  
Embarrassed, deserted, marooned," she despaired, chancing a glance towards Malfoy from between the shelves.

She saw the Slytherin had sat down at the same chair Ron had occupied earlier, and was now fingering the book Ron had read. She saw him open the book curiously, look at some pages, snort, and close it again.

"Now she can't be working for them — I mean us —  
She seems so very straightforward," Malfoy said to himself, then let his eyes wander around the room again. He saw Hermione's head quickly disappearing behind a shelf; so she was still there.

"But where is he?" Malfoy asked himself.

"He has to turn up," Hermione despaired, having pulled her head back as quickly as possible when Malfoy had looked around.

"It's not just the house points!  
Perhaps it is—" she said slowly.

Malfoy was thinking along the same lines some bookshelves away.

"Maybe he's scared!  
Just as scared as he was in the game…"

"Oh, I just couldn't care less!" Hermione decided finally.

"He can go right ahead,  
Go and wreck his good name,  
I know I've done my best!" she said, taking a few bold steps towards Malfoy to get it all finally over with.

But she stopped abruptly and hid again behind a shelf when she heard Malfoy say,

"Well, at least she's a good-looking spy."

Hermione felt her heart beat with thrice the speed that was considered normal. Those words were the last thing she had expected at a situation like this.

"What if dear Malfoy now thinks that my plans  
Have nothing to do with the chess?  
If I don't say something and soon  
He'll go —  
Nobody's on nobody's side!" she whispered, and again stepped proudly out from behind the shelf.

This time Malfoy noticed her.

"Listen, I hate to break up the mood  
Get to the point, begin the beguine  
Haven't you noticed we're a protagonist short  
In this idyllic, well-produced scene?" he said confidently, probably convinced that Hermione hadn't heard his last words.

"All I can say's that moments ago  
He was right here, ready and waiting," Hermione answered just as confidently.

"Never mind him — I haven't missed him so far," Malfoy spitted, and went on to suggest, just at the same time that Hermione said the same words,

"Maybe it won't do any harm  
To struggle on without his charm."

"Funny how all at once I feel  
That he can go jump off the tower  
I won't care," Malfoy quickly added, a bit taken aback that he had said the same thing as Hermione.

He was even more surprised when Hermione didn't start shouting at him for his words, but instead gave him a look full of disappointment, sadness, and fear.

"This is the one situation I wanted most to avoid," Hermione told him, tears now springing into her eyes.

Malfoy was increasingly surprised to see she didn't even try to hide her weakness, and that put him in a somewhat uncomfortable situation — he was a Slytherin, and therefore not accustomed to people so freely expressing their feelings.

"My dear opponent — I really can't imagine why," he said, still staring at the tears now running down Hermione's cheeks, and no longer in control over his mouth.

Hermione let out a faint humourless chuckle, but still made no move to brush away the tears.

"So I am not dangerous then? What a shame!" she said.

"Oh you're not dangerous — who could think that of you?" Malfoy replied, feeling something breaking inside him.

Hermione looked Malfoy straight in his eyes, and saw how some uncustomary warmth spread through them. Earlier that day she had found herself getting lost in the coldness and clarity of those eyes, but now they were completely different in her opinion — they were round with sadness, as if he had never ever had a chance to do anything he wanted; full of warm curiosity as if he would have liked to get to know the whole world, and embrace everything and everyone; and to top it all, they were unnaturally grey.

"You — you are so strange — why can't you be  
What you ought to be?  
You should be scheming, intriguing, too clever by half—" they said together to each other, Hermione feeling a blush creeping up her cheeks, and Malfoy feeling a wave of confusion washing over him.

"I have to hand it to you  
For you've managed to make me forget why I  
Ever agreed to this farce," he said suddenly, breaking his eye contact with Hermione.

Hermione, though, quickly put her hand on his cheek and forced him to turn his head back at her.

"I don't know why I can't think of anything  
I would rather do  
Than be wasting my time in library with you," they again whispered together, Hermione never letting her hand drop from its position on Malfoy's cheek, and Malfoy burying one of his hands into Hermione's wild hair.

They stood there, like that, for some time, not counting the seconds, lost in each other. And that's how Ron found them.

"Who'd ever think it?  
Such a very pretty setting!  
Tell me what's the betting?  
Very pretty plotting too!  
No matter - I've done all your work for you," with that he flung his hand around Hermione and tore her away from a very uncomfortable looking Malfoy, throwing the girl onto the table he had sat at before. He was so wildly red in face now that it was impossible to distinguish where the hair ended and skin started.

Hermione, finding herself painfully sprawled over a desk, finally noticed the book both men had leafed through earlier, and something started ringing in her ears. She didn't even hear Ron's next words.

"Who'd ever guess it?  
Mud-blood in collaboration  
With the very House that  
Took her cat from her own room!  
Where's kitty? Dead or in the dungeons?" Ron shouted at her.

Hermione got up from the desk, paying no attention to her whole body throbbing with pain. She ran out of the library, swearing never to set a foot in there again.

Ron, seeing Hermione leave in a state that flustered, felt some of his anger evaporate. He turned towards Malfoy now, who had backed off towards a bookshelf, fearing that Ron might attack him, too.

"I've agreed to new terms," Ron said to his opponent in a malicious voice, but with no intention to start a fight with him, "which in short means more house points. For you as well, but that can't be helped. This meeting is therefore unnecessary — the match can continue and we don't have to be friends."

With that he turned around, trying to preserve what little pride he hadn't yet lost, and walked out of the library.

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	15. Chess 2

**Note:** It's time to play some chess again. But first, I think, it's time to give some credit to all our wonderful readers and reviewers, who have made us say "Yay!" or "Wheee!" many times. :) I'd like to name the latter here now because it's sort of difficult to name all the readers who haven't reviewed (yet) and it always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to see my name mentioned like this. So, without further ado, lots of sunshine and happiness and other pretty stuff to _Ember Nickel_ (we do enjoy your singing, even though it sometimes confuses us a bit), _caramary_ (you always have a couple of nice words for us which we truly appreciate), _cheekymonkey1994_ (don't worry, there will always come the next chapter, until the end, that is), _firebirdflame _(we do love you, but if you reviewed again, we might start to adore you), _bluemoon86_ (still with us? keep cool!) and our newest reviewer _Elvish-Princess99_ (we're very happy you stumbled upon our humble story).

:D

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**Chess**

**Chess #2**

Days following the Library Incident, Hermione tried to do everything in her power to forget everything about chess and the championship. It shouldn't have been too hard with the heaps of work for classes, mountains of revision for NEWTs, not to mention her Head Girl responsibilities, had not the whole Hogwarts been talking about this and only this. Also, the fact that she still was Ron's second didn't make things better.

Throwing her pride to the wind (because if this meant she didn't have to spend her evenings with her most favourite people in the whole world – Ron, Malfoy, Moody and Snape – then damn her pride!) she had gone to McGonagall about resigning her position as a second, but after being yelled at by her favourite professor for two hours ("I will not let a Gryffindor give up, especially a Head Girl", "Can you imagine the rumours your stepping back will cause!", "I will not give Professor Snape this satisfaction!"), she realized it was hopeless.

And thus she still had to sit in the front row in the Ravenclaw common room a few hours each day, trying to look anywhere but at the two contestants in the middle, the old Auror by their side, and the two very rivalrous Professors taking turns in glaring at their champions and glaring at each other. (They kept their arguments in front of Moody to the minimum, clearly the threat of revealing their (untruthful!!!) fancy for each other working better than any Unbreakable Vow ever could. And having both caught a few students whispering about the very same thing had made them take Moody seriously; and _Obliviate_ those poor students.)

Yet looking around the audience, at their excited faces painted red or green, their gazes concentrated on the chess board, their hands clutching at the sides of their chairs or small rag dolls of either Ron or Malfoy, monstrous beasts of half-snakes half-lions hanging from their ears or around their necks – all this did not give her the yearned escape from chess.

None of the paintings were any better. Especially the one of Lady Ravenclaw, during the matches always shared with Dumbledore, who was either sleeping peacefully, sipping some wine and smiling, or twinkling at the people in the common room. Hermione couldn't fathom how he could be pleased with his creation – after all, it had done the exact opposite to house unity. Now it wasn't even the Gryffindor-Slytherin and Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff thing anymore, now everybody seemed to be against everybody else. Those two houses not competing in chess chose instead to compete for the favour and friendship of either Gryffindors or Slytherins, but their attachment lasted less than a few hours and turned to animosity quickly after.

And even Professors seemed a bit unfair towards all the students outside their own (or favourite, for those who were not Heads) house. The only exceptions were, surprisingly, McGonagall and Snape, who had been pushed too far and now held a personal grudge against each and every student.

But the funny thing was that no one but Hermione noticed this. They were all too occupied with the chess themselves, or perhaps they were just extremely unobservant.

_Everything will go back to normal once this championship is over. Everything. _She promised herself, once again standing in the middle of the Ravenclaw common room waiting for the champions to arrive.

"This has been rather interesting, hmm?" the Bloody Baron tried to be social.

Hermione turned to him and smiled. At least there was one in the whole castle who seemed to be on her side these days, although she would have never guessed it would be the scary Slytherin ghost. But as seconds they sat together in the audience, waited together for the champions, and even solved a few problems together. Like when Ron threw another tantrum and was going to rush out of the room again, it was the Baron, not Hermione, who hovered in front of the door and stopped him with a few well-chosen threats. And when Malfoy simply walked through the Baron who tried to stop him, it was Hermione who grabbed his hand and dragged him back to the table.

Unbelievable as it sounded, they were becoming friends.

"We can only hope this game is going to be as good as the last one," the Baron continued. "I mean, I never knew chess could be this exciting. The way he moved his Knight and Bishop together, leaving him no space to organize or manipulate his pieces, and then how he broke out of the barricade with only two Pawns! The tactic, the mind! I am so proud of the boy."

Hermione sighed. The score before the last game had been 2-2, and then Malfoy had won, and Gryffindors had howled in disappointment. But Ron had not been too taken back by this, instead his will to win had grown even greater, and most of his time went to staring at the chess board and thinking up new moves to use. Of course, this didn't mean he missed any chance to raise his glance and glare angrily at Hermione, who glared back as long as she could restrain her tears, then turned around and walked away with her head held high, only to break into sobs once there was a closed door behind her back.

She had been so angry at Ron, and so hurt by his words and actions when she had run out of the library. But later, when she had no more tears left to cry, she had thought back to all the great times they had had together, and some not so great times during the war when they had been closer than ever before, and risked their lives for each other.

And in the end, after a sleepless night of thinking and sobbing, she had come to the conclusion that all the blame went to chess and the pressure it had on him. Sure, he still shouldn't have said some of the things he did, but knowing Ron he probably didn't mean all this. He had been just angry and tired and she hadn't been too easy on him either. And so, Hermione decided to give him another chance – to give him her forgiveness once again.

But he never asked. And she started to doubt.

"Welcome, finalists!" the Bloody Baron exclaimed, starting her out of her thoughts. And indeed, Ron and Malfoy had made it into the arena, now moving towards the central table and scowling at each other.

Ron stepped past her like he hadn't seen her at all, and even though it hurt, she had become used to this. But then he stopped, turned around, and gave her a long serious look, which made her breath get caught and heart start beating twice as fast. As if in slow motion he walked back to her, and she had to swallow the lump in her throat before looking up into his eyes.

"Hermione," he whispered, and she couldn't help the smile forming on her lips nor the lonely tear spilling from her eye.

"I am going to win today's game for everyone still loyal to me. Feel free to count yourself out."

The blow of these words hit her so hard she even stumbled back a few steps, her mouth open in shock and eyes wide in horror. But fates gave her no time to collect herself because a second later the other player was standing in front of her.

His cold calculating grey eyes bore into her misty ones, as he told her calmly,

"I will win the game for you."

And then he was gone, and Moody was talking, and people were rushing into the common room to watch the game, and Hermione had never been quite so confused or shocked before.

---

The orchestra was playing mildly and all the eyes in the room, and many eyes outside were staring at the chess board in the middle. This, for once, also included Hermione, who explained her renewed interest in the game with the fact that if she wasn't following the game she would be thinking, and if she thought too hard she might just jump up, run to the centre, and strangle Ron. Or Malfoy. Or both.

"Knight to F3," Ron, playing with whites this game, spoke clearly the opening move. Hermione watched his Knight rein the horse and jump over a Pawn to reach its ordered place.

Moody scribbled the move down with his pencil. Hermione had no idea why he was using a Muggle pencil and Muggle paper for this, but she concluded it gave him a scarier look in front of those many witches and wizards who had never seen either before.

"Knight to F6," Malfoy said, making the exact symmetrical move to Ron's.

The redhead frowned. Clearly, he had not been expecting this. For a moment he raised his glance to his opponent, as if asking _What are you playing at? _But Malfoy didn't answer to his glance, and Ron turned it back to the chess board.

"Pawn to B3," he stated confidently, his Pawn made an important face and enjoying its limelight, stepped two squares forward.

"Pawn to B6," Malfoy said almost immediately, once again copying Ron's move and making him frown even deeper.

Now there was a long pause of relaxing music in the room, which did nothing to ease the tension in it. Like always in these cases, people started to whisper, careful to keep their voices down and not get thrown into a pile of snow.

"He's copying his moves!" someone stated the very obvious.

"Is it allowed?" someone else inquired.

"What is he trying to do?"

_He's trying to confuse him, _Hermione answered the last question in her mind. And if she was right, Malfoy was doing a great job at it.

---

"And the tension grows in the gaming arena where the snake has so far copied each move of the lion, who now has to take a moment and figure out the best way for him to move and tramp the snake into dirt. The look of concentration on his face, sweat glistening on his forehead, his eyes scanning the board left and right, up and down – you can almost feel the little wheels going round and round in his brain as new ideas, new tactics..."

"Chocolate Frogs! Peppermint Toads! Lollipops! Pumpkin juice! Butterbeer! Rag dolls! Photos with signatures! Malfoy's stolen underwear! Gum chewed by Weasley!"

After their initial chaos in the Great Hall, Hufflepuffs had done some serious thinking (during their all-night-long detentions they had received for not managing to pack up their goods and products quickly enough) and found a way to connect chess and commerce. Now those who wanted to enjoy the game did not have to hide themselves under the tables as the Great Hall was furnished with rows of chairs and a big screen above the teacher's table which showed the happenings in the Ravenclaw tower.

And so, people went there and sat down and looked at the screen and listened to Seamus commentating about the match (as it was rather hard not to hear him). But whenever there was a pause in the game, a moment of silence when whichever player contemplated his next move, when the audience started to get restless and bored – that was the time to sell them anything from sweets and drinks to parchment rolls scented like Ron. (The worst idea ever in Harry's point of view, who had gone sort of green when it had been pushed under his nose, and even more greener when Susan had happily announced that she had sold eleven such rolls in the last five minutes.)

"Oh, hello, Seamus!" Ernie grinned at the boy giving him a death glare. "Anything for you? Lollipops, candies, juice? Or perhaps something else? Look at this-" he took an old grey sock out of his bag, "-this sock was worn by Weasley when he won his first game. It's guaranteed to be lucky."

"Merlin, Ernie! You want me to buy an old dirty sock for what... ten sickles? Are you out of your mind! I live in the same room as Ron – I could swim in his dirty socks if I wanted."

"Not that I want," he added quickly with a shiver of horror.

"Hmm," Ernie said, looking pensive. "I'll give you 5 sickles if you bring me the socks he wore for today's match. That is, if he wins, of course."

"I wouldn't touch his dirty laundry for even ten galleons," he replied disgustedly.

"All right, all right, I get it. 6 sickles?"

"Get lost, Macmillan. The number of sweat drops on Ron's left cheek indicates he is going to make his move in five seconds."

"Now really, Finnigan," the other boy started, but didn't get to finish since Ron's voice boomed over the chatter of the hall.

"Pawn to G4."

Seamus would have loved to gloat in front of Macmillan, but now that the move was made he had to comment upon it. But he comforted himself with the idea that the Hufflepuff fool had a dirty sock of Ron's in his bag.

"And Ronald Weasley has made his move, setting his Pawn right under fire from the Black Knight. Is this a part of his ingenious technique or is he simply trying to prevent Malfoy from copying this move of his? We can't be sure of this yet, but very soon we will see the snake's reaction..."

"Pawn to G5."

"And he's done it again – copied his opponent's move and now placing his own Pawn into danger. What will the lion answer to this – will he claim the snake's Pawn or move his own out of the danger? Very soon, dear people, we will see, although perhaps he will need a moment of thought..."

---

While Gryffindor commented, Hufflepuff sold, and Ravenclaw was hosting the match, the Slytherins had put up their own little business.

"Five Galleons for Weasley."

Theodore Nott wrote it down in his notebook and moved along. Once he had made it back to the Slytherin part of the hall, his housemates quickly gathered around him.

"What's the total?" Blaise asked.

"Seventy nine Galleons for Weasley, fifty six for Malfoy."

"Hmm, not everyone here seems to favour the Weasel after all," he smirked.

"It's the Ravenclaws. They are smart. Draco is leading at the moment, after all."

"Hopefully he wins this time as well."

"How are they doing at the moment?" Nott asked, looking at the screen.

"He still keeps copying majority of his moves and it has already cost him his Queen."

Nott thought about it for a while.

"Oh, what the hell," he said at last. "I'll put ten of my own."

"For Draco?"

"Would I dare bet against my own House?" he faked shock and horror.

Blaise only smirked as he wrote down the name of the Gryffindor. After all, that was how he had won forty Galleons.

---

_Oh Merlin! Oh Merlin! Oh Merlin! Oh Merlin! _Hermione was chanting in her head. The game was close to its end, she could feel it in the tension around the room, see it from the expressions of the players, hear it from the notes the orchestra produced. One way or another, it was going to end in the next couple of moves.

"Let him win! Let him win! Let him win!" she muttered under her breath, unable to turn her eyes away from the board.

"Let who win?" the Bloody Baron whispered into her ear.

"Who do you think!" Hermione hissed back, not angry at him, but too nervous at the moment.

"That doesn't matter," he chuckled softly. "What matters is who do **you** think."

"Well, obviously," she started to say, but was cut through by Malfoy's move.

"Pawn to E1."

Ron stared at the board. Everyone stared at the board, even Ernie and Blaise back in the Great Hall.

The Pawn had made it to the other end of the chess board and was now standing proudly, waiting for his promotion.

"And in the end," Malfoy spoke up to the whole room. "It only takes one determined Pawn to win the game."

"Queen," he said to the Pawn and as it changed its form, the White King started visibly, suddenly finding himself under attack from all directions. It tried to escape the newly metamorphosed Pawn, but everywhere black pieces stood menacingly in its way, it tried bringing its own army to protect it, but they were all too far or separated by blacks. For a little longer the White King looked around in panic, until a Black Knight stepped forward and chopped its head off.

"And the winner is Draco Malfoy!" Moody announced.

Hermione let out a sigh of relief and froze. A sigh of **relief**? But that would mean...

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	16. Hermione Quits

**Note:** As always, we don't own what we don't own. But quite unusually, it's _Larix _here posting this chapter. I haven't done this for a while now and I really don't remember how to write a nice disclaimer and a nice authors' note. So without further ado I give you Chapter 16 - Hermione Quits.

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_**Hermione Quits**_

Had the Whomping Willow had any feelings it would have not just been enormously cold in the biting frost, it would also have felt anger, confusion, and a desire to run far away. Probably it would have stared in disbelief, too, because the Whomping Willow was not used to being under attack.

But that's exactly what was happening to it right now.

Hermione was standing just out of the reach of the tree in a small pool of water. The warming spell around her had to be extremely strong to fight so effectively with the extreme coldness that hadn't been seen in that part of the Earth for years, and the young witch was using the melting snow around her to form firm snowballs, freeze them into solid ice again with a spell, and fling them at the battered tree with all her magical might.

Hermione was concentrating on her action so deeply that she didn't even notice someone approaching her from behind, though their teeth were clattering uncontrollably.

"Hermione! What are you doing here?" The question was accompanied with a cloud of tiny crystals of water.

"Oh, Harry! I… erm… snowball fright— I mean, fight…snowball fight…" Hermione stuttered in reply, not looking into his eyes.

"Everybody was worried," Harry said simply, grabbing hold of Hermione's arm and tearing her towards the castle. Feeling the circle of warmth around her, Harry quickly stepped closer to her.

"I just wanted to," Hermione started confidently, but her voice faltered halfway through, and the ending of the sentence was quite unconvincing, "have some… fun."

Harry snorted humourlessly, and the Willow shook it's boughs in a way which might have been considered indignant.

"Come on, let's go inside," Hermione suggested silently, as if Harry hadn't been trying to force her to go that way all along.

"Let's go," Harry nodded, and then ran after Hermione whose pace was so quick that for a moment he had been left outside the bubble of warmth.

"Now tell me, what's wrong lately?" he asked, catching up with her.

"Haven't you been to the games?" was the answer.

"No, actually I haven't," Harry replied, his cheeks colouring slightly.

"Good for you."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he stayed quiet. For some time they walked towards the castle in silence, Hermione's eyes cast down in a position which would have hinted on humiliation hadn't she been almost running all the while, and Harry trying to keep as close to her as possible without being hit with her flaying arms.

"I don't find chess as thrilling as Quidditch," Harry continued some time later, just to get some words from Hermione.

"Quidditch is wonderful!" Hermione screeched, storming up the stairs to the front door, the smile on her face looking as if she was constantly being tortured with a thousand _Crucio_'s. "When's the next game? I'd really like to come to wa— aargh!"

She had walked straight into the front door, forgetting to open it.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry asked again, gently guiding a cursing Hermione inside. He closed the door after them, and took out his wand to remove the warming spell from his friend. All the while Hermione stood like a statue, having stopped cursing now.

Standing there, Hermione was racking her brain. What could she tell Harry? What should she say was the matter with her? Little drops of sweat started to form on her temples and the back of her neck, and her skin was burning red with the intense heat, for Harry hadn't managed to remove the spell, though he had tried repeatedly.

"Ron's losing," she blurted out finally, happy that she had found a way to keep Malfoy out of it.

Harry nodded.

"You should take the spell down yourself. It's too strong for me," he said.

"And I'm his second and therefore it's my fault as much as his, maybe even more, and I can't live like that!" Hermione continued, her lips bending in a smile against her will, a slightly maniacal gleam in her eyes.

"You should take it down now, before you catch fire," Harry insisted, for bulging blisters were starting to spring on her cheeks and hands.

Hermione didn't listen to him, she was ranting.

"And Ron is blaming me all the time, not that he didn't have a right to do so, and McGonagall is behaving like a child, and she for one certainly doesn't have a right to do so, and Snape is berating me all the time, not that he hasn't done that always, and Draco is—"

Harry didn't even try to listen to Hermione any longer. He made to shake her out of her rant, clearly worried for his friend, but when his hands entered the circle of heat, he couldn't but jump away from her, letting his reflexes get the better of his will. He looked at Hermione for a moment, then closed his eyes, and then ran straight into her, not letting the heat scare him away this time.

Hermione stumbled onto the floor, Harry on top of her. Harry quickly rolled himself away from her, to get out of the heat, for one, and to get out of her reach, too. Hermione, on the other hand, stayed down on the floor for a moment, her mouth open and eyes wide in surprise. Then she jumped up, grabbed her wand, removed the charm and healed her skin in one fluid motion, then stepped up to Harry and loomed menacingly over him.

"And you're the worst of them all! Attacking me like that for no reason at all! I'd do anything to get far away from you all! I don't want to share a House with you!"

And she ran up the Marble Stairs with no glancing back, leaving a befuddled Harry explaining to the empty Entrance Hall that he had thought Hermione was a bit hot with this spell around her inside the castle.

-----

The next day Harry made his way to the Ravenclaw common room with ample time to the start of the match. He was even more worried now than he had been the day before. Hermione hadn't turned up all night, and he hadn't even been able to locate her on the Marauders' Map. From that he had naturally concluded she had been in the Room of Requirement, but when he had finally managed to get the door to appear, it had been locked in a way that no spell he could cast would open it.

So he had decided to go watch the game, knowing that Hermione had to turn up for that.

He took a seat right next to the one that had the inscription of _Weasley's second_ on it's back, and sat there, waiting. Soon a flow of students was blocking the Window Hole, professors McGonagall and Snape had sat down in their seats, even the Bloody Baron had floated over to his seat, smiling and waving to numerous students in the audience. But Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

Minutes passed and the orchestra simultaneously cast the tuning charm on their instruments. A moment later Moody walked in, twirling a pencil between his fingers in a merry way, though the expression on his face was severe and harsh. Then, after him, Ron and Malfoy came, refusing to look at each other, refusing to look at McGonagall and Snape, even refusing to look at Moody. But both of them, almost in a coordinated move, turned their gazes to the empty chair where Hermione should have been sitting, and identical expressions of surprise, confusion, and disappointment flashed over their cheeks as they sat down in their armchairs.

Harry heard a clock tick somewhere as the whole room waited in silence. He saw Flitwick raise his wand to begin, when the Window finally slid open again, admitting Hermione.

"Where've you been?" Harry asked quickly as Hermione sat down.

"Shh!" was all he got for an answer.

"McGonagall came looking for you last night. And Ron was going ballistic. We were worried," Harry whispered.

"Shh, the game!" Hermione insisted again, grabbing for her wand in a threatening way.

"I think you should talk to us about it," Harry tried to tell her, but before he managed to get a word out, Hermione had cast a silencing charm on him.

This way Harry had nothing left to do than to watch the game, though without Seamus' professional commentary he understood next to nothing of it. After some moves the audience would let out _Oh_!-s and _Ah_!-s, though Harry could not make himself understand what was so special about them.

He sat there, eyes closed, listening to the music, berating himself for not taking a Quidditch book with him. He was growing more and more restless, but it seemed the chairs had been charmed in a way that prevented the spectators from leaving before the end of the match. And then, some hour and a half later, the time which he had spent mostly asleep, he heard the music growing in volume and speed, getting more anxious with every note, pushing the game towards a climax.

"Checkmate!" Malfoy said.

Harry's eyes snapped open. He saw that Ron looked flabbergasted, almost ready to kill. On the other side of the table Malfoy had stood up, smiling with good humour, no smirk on his face, and bowing to Hermione. With another jolt of surprise Harry noticed that Hermione was beaming right back at the Slytherin.

"So that's what's going on!" he almost shouted, but no sound escaped his lips. He looked back at Ron, whose gaze was now fixed menacingly on Hermione, but when he turned to her again the gleeful expression had disappeared from her face; instead there was the dull devastation and refined certainty they were almost becoming used to, already.

Deciding it was high time to force his friends not to make wrong decisions he jumped up from the chair, grabbed them by their arms, and tore them after him, all the while shouting at them, completely forgetting that he was still soundless.

-----

Ron couldn't comprehend what he had done wrong — first Malfoy beat him in the game, though he played his best, certainly; then Hermione seemed happy about that; and finally Harry tried to rip his arm off, all the while mouthing something fiercely.

He let Harry guide him down some odd three flights of stairs, usher him (and Hermione, too, of course) through some secret passages he even didn't know anything about, then tear them upstairs again so many steps that he didn't even bother to count, still not saying a word, running the whole time.

After another flight of stairs Harry bowed down, clutching his side, evidently having a stitch there. Ron quickly shook his friend's hand off him, from the corner of his eye seeing Hermione doing the same. He stepped some paces away from the others, but Hermione followed him. He took some more strides, but Hermione didn't stop. Ron started running, Hermione high on his heels.

And suddenly Ron found himself again in the alcove from where he had watched Hermione in the snow. He ran to the window and pressed his palms and forehead against it, then turned his back to it and sat down on the ground.

"Five games to two!" he said. "It's all over!"

Hermione stood some fifteen feet from him, leaning on the wall, trying to force her breathing even and look as if she had just been passing by.

"Oh," she said.

Ron looked up at her face, so impartial now, impossible to read. The image of her girlfriend lighting up with joy at the sight of his defeat swam back into focus, and he jumped up from the ground again, bursting with anger.

"So you got what you want  
What a nasty ambition!  
Set me up, pull me down  
Then exploit my condition

I should have guessed, woman  
That if pressed, woman  
You're on nobody's side but your own  
And you are behaving  
Like a mere woman  
It's so clear woman —  
It's your sex!"

"What? First you berate my inheritance, then my sex? And then you ask what's wrong with _me_!" Hermione screeched, completely forgetting her hope of working everything out with Ron, or her charade of impartiality.

"Once they start getting old and getting worried  
They let fly, take it out  
On the one who supports them.  
That's you I'm talking about!"

Hermione looked at him in clear distaste for a moment, formulating her answer.

"Who'd ever guess it?  
Such a squalid little ending  
Watching you descending  
Just as far as you can go  
I'm learning things I didn't want to know!" she spat with malice.

"Who'd ever think it?  
This would be the situation —  
One more observation —  
How'd we ever get this far  
Before you showed me what you really are?"

They were both red in the face by now, not listening to each other, just screaming at the top of their lungs. It was clear to the both of them that they couldn't spend another five minutes in the same room without trying to strangle each other. It was clear to both of them that it really was a squalid little ending.

"You'll be lost without me  
To take notes like I used to!" Hermione yelled as one last go.

"Go away! Leave me alone!  
Be someone else's know-it-all!" Ron answered in rage, but Hermione had already turned around and stormed off.

* * *

**Review! **(please...) 


	17. Pity the Child

**Note: **This chapter took me the longest to write. Ron's childhood was quite different from Frederick's (the original character), and I had some trouble figuring out the song, and even when it was done, it took me two tries to write the chapter. But I like the result, and I hope that you will, too. :)

ooooo **  
**

**Chess**

**Pity The Child**

When Harry finally caught up with Ron again (it hadn't been too hard to locate these two, he just had to follow the screaming), he was standing motionless in the middle of the hallway, the expression on his face hard to read. He had never been one to guard his feelings, but now it seemed he didn't know himself whether to be pleased, angry, or miserable at such turn of events.

"Ron, mate..." Harry began, not knowing what to say, but since he was still Silenced, it didn't matter anyway.

Ron didn't seem to notice his friend. He kept his place for a while longer, then turned around and marched off, leaving Harry, who had made himself a bit more comfortable since Ron hadn't seemed to be leaving any time soon, napping on the floor.

He made the mistake of dropping into the Gryffindor common room, but after two dozen people had tried to suffocate him with thousands of questions, promises, pleadings, and threats, he took a hasty leave.

In search of a quiet corner, he let his feet take him wherever they wanted, and in the end found himself in the Trophy Room.

Oh yes, he thought wryly, in addition to lots of housepoints, tickets to the Ministry's Spring Ball, and eternal fame and glory, the winner of the tournament was to be also presented with a School Award as the Champion Of Hogwarts (in Chess). He had heard rumours about another award, of something very secret only Dumbledore knew about, but had dismissed those stories as rubbish.

His eyes lingered on the old awards, trophies, statues, cups, plates, shields, and medals kept in crystal display cases, wondering what had become of their owners. Well, he knew the fate of some of them, Tom Riddle for example, but most were just names he had never heard before.

This was the eternal fame and glory promised to him – a golden trinket to collect dust in some forgotten room and be scrubbed by naughty students of the future.

"When I was young I wasn't striking  
Just another in the mass  
With red hair and imposed freckles  
No one I could surpass  
Always together with all my brothers  
They led procession with me as tailbone  
Never I was on my own  
Whenever I found something nice and new  
They were there too," he told the empty room and its trophies given to people long dead or forgotten.

"Pity the child who's not distinctive  
Who looks just like the same  
Who wants to shine out with his person  
Find some glory and fame  
Pity the child who gets appraised by  
The deeds of his brothers, and not those of his  
Pity the child that would  
Always wonder what else could he do  
To become illustrious."

Harry and even Hermione had envied him for growing up in a big family. But they didn't know what it had been like.

"When I got older my brother moved out  
Out of our room and out of the house  
I did miss him yet I was a bit glad  
Now the whole room to myself I had  
Fool that I was to think it will last  
Percy had plans and made his moves fast  
He needed silence to study thus he got the room  
They never asked my word on that  
They just came and told me to scat  
I did protest but there was no use  
The chance to have some privacy again did I lose."

He had been angry at Percy for many weeks after that room incident. Perfect Percy who always got what he wanted – new robes, new owl, new room. And where did it get him? Perhaps he would have turned out a lot more normal if he hadn't got his own room at that point.

"I came here with least resistance  
My chance to be alone  
Hoping to have some personal moments  
To have my spirit shone  
Pity the child who got his hopes up  
Thought things now had to change  
But instead he gained  
A friend so great, famous and fantastic  
Yet he was just a sidekick."

It wasn't Harry's fault, he knew that. But it changed nothing – Harry was still the hero, whether he wanted it or not, and he was just a sidekick. Like Hermione.

Hermione.

"Pity the child but not forever  
Not if he stays that way  
He can get all he ever wanted  
If he's prepared to pay  
Pity instead those other people  
What they missed  
What they lost when they looked past him  
And now they want to win  
Back his favour only to use that man  
But they never can!!!"

He still had the chance to win the tournament and become the champion. And he was sure he could if only he pulled himself together. Sure, it would be hard, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes, but it was possible.

To get all the fame and glory he had always wanted, and only for his own actions, his own deeds.

And yet, was it worth it?

It would be nice to win another House Cup thanks to the points of his victory, even though Snape would definitely use the rest of the year solely for taking them all away.

But people would respect and like him. Except Slytherins, but he would rather throw up slugs again than be respected by them. And those students from other houses who for some inexplicable reason had sided with Malfoy.

Yes, he still had the chance to win. But he had managed to lose so much already. He had managed to lose Hermione.

---

The match next day was a nervous affair. Everyone knew that if Malfoy were to win this game, the tournament would be over.

Most of the Slytherins had chosen to watch the game live that day, to be there to cheer for their player, and sneer at the opponent. Most of the Gryffindors (except Harry who had caught a cold by sleeping on the freezing stone floor and was currently in the Hospital Wing, which also broadcasted the game, much to Madam Pomfrey's dismay) were also present to cheer for **their** player, and point a finger and laugh at the opponent (they had given up their tries to sneer since even they had to admit it looked more like a sheep in agony).

Snape was looking rather pleased, but still managed to keep the threatening undertone that promised pain to everyone should things not go his way. McGonagall was sitting stick-straight by his side, refusing to look around or show any hint of being a live person instead of a statue of stone.

Malfoy was already there having a whispering conversation with the Bloody Baron that had nothing to do with chess, and everything with a certain brown-eyed girl they had both hated at one time, but not anymore.

A part of Draco's brain wondered how good of an idea it was to listen to the advice of a bloody ghost on matters like love and romance, but there was no one else he could have this discussion with, and he had seen the Baron having a friendly chat with Hermione on many recent occasions.

The topic of their talk, and her player, had yet to arrive at the arena, and he was starting to feel a bit apprehensive about it. At the last game he had felt her become his talisman, his luck charm. It wasn't anything she had done, but every time he hesitated with his move, he had taken a surreptitious glimpse of her face, and that had calmed him down enough to think clearly, and notice every little detail on the board.

It was a bit ridiculous since he had been taught to always count on his own abilities and never on luck (because luck could turn, but his abilities were always there), but he felt that he had not only won the game for her, but thanks to her.

Due to the unusually loud chatter and clatter in the common room, only the Bloody Baron was close enough to notice the look of relief and small smile on his face when Hermione finally appeared through the window hole. But his good mood vanished at once when he saw her dull red eyes and blotchy face.

When Hermione made it to her seat, she found a rather worried Bloody Baron waiting there for her. This was something new – the Baron wasn't known for his concern for any people, least of all Gryffindors. And no one knew it better than the Baron himself, who realized he had no idea how to act in such a situation.

"There's a big chance the Tournament will end with today," he remarked.

"Yes, I know," Hermione answered impassively.

"But you of course want it to last longer."

"I want it to have never happened at all," she said, her tone bleak and blank.

"Oh, you shouldn't wish for that!" the Baron admonished.

"Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it's better it happened now, and not after some ten years. I wouldn't want to waste that much time for a relationship that is doomed to fail."

Hermione looked even more gloomy and miserable now than before, and the ghost still had no idea how to behave in this kind of position. He had a faint memory of comforting words coming handy when people were sad, but had been more used to treating them with evil laughter and mockery.

Since he had come to like the girl too much to laugh at her misery, he did the only thing he could think of, and hovered over to the Malfoy kid who had been beckoning him with intent glares.

"What did she say?" he hissed at the ghost.

The Bloody Baron opened his ghostly mouth to answer, but at that moment a tiny boy with big frightened blue eyes and black hair fell through the window hole into the common room with a yelp.

Standing up from the floor, he seemed to hesitate for a moment upon seeing so many eyes turned on him, but he was probably a Gryffindor since instead of turning back and running away, he gathered together all his courage and stepped up to Moody.

The arbiter looked down to the small boy and smiled encouragingly – a sight that made half the audience cover in fear. With unnatural bravery (yep, definitely a Gryffindor) he took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Moody, then used the moment the recipient looked at it to make a run towards the exit, only to stumble upon his own feet and fall down, right in front of the central table.

"Boo!" the Bloody Baron could not hold himself back.

The first year Gryffindor let out a scream of fear and was gone faster than the eye could perceive.

The Baron nodded appreciatively and made a mental note to have a friendly chat with the boy later on. As noble as it was to stand brave in the face of danger, sometimes the best thing was to be gone, and let someone else be the brave one.

"SILENCE!!!" Moody bellowed out of the sudden with such force that all the people (and even the Baron) started in surprise, and turned to look towards the old mad Auror.

He was standing in front of his seat, a parchment in his hand, and a frown upon is face. He didn't seem to be very pleased, and a moment later, everyone found out why.

"Ronald Weasley has resigned," he announced to the absolute silence. "Draco Malfoy is the winner of today's game and therefore the Champion of the Tournament."

No one in the room made a sound. Until the orchestra realized that now was the time to play the special piece they had composed for the occasion, and let the notes of joy and victory break the shocked silence. Slytherins took it as their clue to start cheering and sneering, while Gryffindors started to complain.

One by one the students left their places to congratulate the winner, or to escape the sneering Slytherins and drown their sorrows into a glass of pumpkin juice.

Moody stood by and watched it all, still frowning. It wasn't that he had wanted the other boy to win, as the Arbiter he had been completely impartial (as an Auror and Order Member he had been a bit less unbiased, but that didn't matter). Just that Moody was the kind of person who believed in fighting, fighting, fighting till death, and didn't think much of those who quitted. Plus he had made a bet with Kingsley for twenty Galleons that there would be more than ten games in total.

Hermione let out a slow breath. At least it was all over. At least life would go back to normal now – to studying, studying, and more studying, as was her plan.

Standing up from her seat she moved towards the window hole, not in the mood to press through the mass of people in order to congratulate Malfoy, even though it would have been the polite thing to do.

But she didn't care about manners right now, all she cared about was getting away, going to the Room of Requirement and losing herself into one of her essays. Perhaps a cup of tea wouldn't hurt either.

"Hermione!" someone called out her name, and when she simply ignored it, she was grabbed by her arm and wheeled around.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" she asked tiredly, having no wish to snap at him for stopping her like that or notice that they were now in the centre of all attention in the room.

"You," he said simply, and kissed her right then and there, in front of a roomful of Slytherins, Gryffindors, and a few students from other houses; in full view of Moody, Snape, and McGonagall (who actually missed that shocking display of affections since she had fallen off her chair and was lying unconscious on the floor; of course, that might have been Snape's doing who had hit her in the head with his elbow during his jumping up and down in glee); directly in front of the wiz-cam that projected the image straight into the Great Hall.

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**REVIEWS are very welcomed, cherished, and worshipped. :)  
**


	18. Governor's Lament

**Chess**

**Governor's Lament**

"So, you mean you've been sleeping out here for the whole month?" Hermione asked, curled up on a desk in an unused classroom, wrapped in a large woolly green blanket.

"I told you, I don't feel that comfortable in my common room," Draco answered from where he was perched up on his own desk. "Do you?"

"Do I what?" Hermione asked, not understanding.

"Do you feel comfortable in your common room?"

Hermione snorted icily. "With me having been their chess second? And with Ron losing? The whole house would batter me! And even Ron, and Harry, and Ginny, after what happened between me and Ron…" She didn't finish the sentence, but her point was obvious.

It was the next morning after the final game in the championship, and Hermione was extremely surprised to have disappeared from the crowd with Draco right after the game, escaped all the commotion, all congratulations and accusations, all partying and fighting there was to be; they had slipped into this room that had desks piled onto each other at the sides, a couple of blankets and pillows thrown on one of them, the room which had been a home for Draco since the beginning of the chess championship.

"To Slytherins _fair play_ sounds more like an insult," Draco explained his decision to reside alone in those almost inhuman conditions.

"To Gryffindors losing to Slytherin sounds like the end of the world," Hermione answered.

"It is," Draco said with a small smile.

Hermione snorted into the blanket, but the severe look on Draco's face made her humour drop.

"Lemon drop?" Draco asked after a bit of silence, grimacing to Hermione and making a poor imitation of Dumbledore.

"No, thanks, the package you gave me two minutes ago is still half-full."

"It's half-empty, then," Draco quickly retorted, taking one piece of candy from his own package and plopping it into his mouth. "Dumbledore is too Dumbledore."

"Really," Hermione asked sarcastically, laughing at the same time. "But you are right, who else would give out an extra award in the form of a thousand packages of lemon drops!"

They both laughed for a good while, each perched on their own desk, sending sneaky glances when they thought the other wasn't watching. Then they continued to suck on their candy for a while longer.

"What were you thinking about?" she asked suddenly.

"When?"

"A while ago. Before laughing at Dumbledore."

"You," came the swift reply. "Well, actually, both of us."

Hermione let this statement sink in for a moment without answering. She wasn't sure she could fathom the idea of them really being close enough to go under one mutual pronoun; that was something much more than to borrow a blanket from the other and to spend some time together in a classroom.

"Do you remember what Flitwick said in the beginning?" Draco continued when Hermione gave no indication of answering.

"In the beginning of what?"

"The tournament," Draco said. "He said they'd welcome the winner at their House," he elaborated.

"I'm sure it was just meant to fill in the rhythm in the rhyme," Hermione laughed. "Besides, I'd never thought you'd get tired of being a Slytherin!"

"I'm not tired of being a Slytherin, I'm tired of being with Slytherins," Draco shot back. "And I know for sure that since the destruction of the Sorting Hat it is allowed to change the houses when you feel you have been misplaced."

"That goes for those who have been sorted without the hat, surely," Hermione replied, but a little spark of curiosity was flickering inside her. Could she really change her House? The Sorting Hat had really wanted to place her in Ravenclaw — could she now go and try out how it would be in that House?

"I read the decree some time ago," Draco said confidently, earning another praising look from Hermione. "Of course it's made keeping in mind those who have been placed by the Board, but it doesn't say that anywhere."

"And as long as everything is correct in jurisdiction…" Hermione didn't finish the sentence.

"So, what do you think?" There was a passionate, a bit maniacal gleam in Draco's eyes as he asked that.

"I don't know," Hermione replied, and in all honesty she didn't. Of course it would have been fun to defect, but was it all worth the trouble? How would it affect her NEWTs scores? How would it affect the professors' opinion of her? Was it reasonable to do something like that just a bit over a semester before graduation? Was the thrill of changing sides really worth sacrificing the person she had become in Gryffindor?

"I'm sorry," she said finally, making up her mind, only to almost change it when she saw the disappointment on Draco's face. "It's just," she said, throwing the green blanket off her and jumping down onto the floor, "I am a Gryffindor; I can't change it just like that! The Sorting Hat did place me in Gryffindor in the end, didn't it! Though I had to convince it for some time…" She smiled apologetically.

Draco sighed and jumped down after Hermione to pick up the discarded blanket and fold it carefully together on a desk. He did his best to avoid looking at Hermione who noticed the change in his behaviour towards her in an instant.

"Don't take it personally! I—" but she didn't know how to end the thought.

"What are you doing here then if you're a Gryffindor? Why aren't you with your boyfriend up in your tower? I thought Gryffindors wouldn't be companionable with Slytherins!"

"He's not my boyfriend any more!" Hermione shouted, regretting it already before she could finish it. She hadn't meant to end up shouting at the only person in the whole of Hogwarts who still seemed to understand and want to spend time with her. "Besides, we could still be — you know — while being in different Houses," she ended somewhat lamely.

Draco looked at her in amusement, his brows raised and mouth curved if not in smirk then at least a mocking smile.

"I don't know," he said. "Friends, you mean?"

Hermione blushed.

"If you say so," she muttered.

"You should leave now," Draco said suddenly, stuffing another handful of lemon drops into Hermione's pocket. "I need to go meet Longbottom."

"Neville? What for?" Hermione asked, now really confused in addition to being disappointed at Malfoy's wish to be just friends.

"No, not Neville. Mrs. Longbottom is the Governor I'm meeting to discuss my changing of House."

Saying that Malfoy exited the room, holding the door open for Hermione to follow. But Hermione didn't move. She held her spot, looking questioningly at Draco, hesitating.

"I… Friends?" she finally managed to say.

Malfoy smiled, this time neither mockingly nor evilly. He let his gaze glide over Hermione, the woman visibly aware of the progress of his eyes. Then he let his eyes drop to the ground, and his pale cheeks coloured a bit.

"I'd like it if you came with me. I'm actually a bit afraid of that woman…"

"I didn't know Neville's grandmother's a Governor," Hermione said to buy some time.

"That makes her only more frightening," Malfoy replied, now looking back at Hermione. "Please," he said.

Hermione almost let her mouth drop open. She'd never imagined the day would come when she would hear Malfoy say that word with such deepness to it. And she'd never imagined that at that day she'd actually want to do his bidding.

"I'll come," she said, adding quickly, "but just to keep you company, I won't leave Gryffindor."

Malfoy mouthed a "Thank you" to her and together they left the classroom, heading in Hermione's great surprise for McGonagall's office. In the one day and night after the final game the school had changed greatly — all around the corridors and passageways there were signs of recent fights, every now and then she could see a spot of blood, or torn clothing somewhere. In more secluded corners, though, there were empty bottles of Firewhiskey, and mead, and wine, and even vodka. And half way to the Headmistress' office Hermione almost stumbled over a leg protruding from behind a tapestry covering the entrance to a hidden passage, so the people who had consumed the contents of the bottles weren't quite finished yet, either.

Reaching the gargoyle, Hermione heard Malfoy breath a sigh of relief.

"What's wrong? I thought you were afraid of facing her," Hermione asked.

"I am. But I was more afraid of meeting someone on my way here."

"Some Gryffindor?" Hermione asked, trying to ease the tension with a smirk.

"Or a Slytherin, or a Hufflepuff, or a Ravenclaw; doesn't really matter. Anyone but you." He added, this time his face colouring only so slightly that Hermione wasn't sure it wasn't just a figment of her imagination.

"So, you won the House cup for Slytherins and now leave so you can't enjoy the victory with them?" Hermione quickly changed the subject, trying to procrastinate saying the password to the Headmistress' office.

"Well, if you came with me, it wouldn't have to be that way," Malfoy confirmed confidently.

"What do you mean?"

"The two of us together would get so many points with our knowledge that we could surpass them easily!" he smirked.

"Nice image," Hermione laughed, "But I'm not that simple to convince."

They stood in front of the gargoyle for a while longer, before Hermione finally sighed and said the password.

"Championship."

The guardian jumped away, and they stepped onto the staircase together. In a moment they were behind McGonagall's door, and Hermione had knocked before she even registered in her brain why she did it. The door opened and they entered to find a grey-haired old woman wearing a broad-rimmed green wizards' hat with a stuffed vulture perched on it and a huge spiky red handbag sitting on McGonagall's usual spot.

"You, sit!" she said, motioning towards Malfoy but not looking at him. "You, out!" This was to Hermione.

"No, I'm here with him!" Hermione protested, and only when both Mrs. Longbottom and Draco had fixed their surprised glances on her did she understand what she had said. "I mean…" she started to remedy the damage, but the Governor wasn't one for much useless words, it seemed.

"Sit, then," she barked, and another chair appeared next to the one Malfoy was occupying.

Finally Longbottom looked up. She gave both of them a strict glare, then got up from her chair, and started talking to herself, as if Hermione and Draco weren't in the room.

"Children," she huffed. "Like they know what's best to them!

"Oh my dear how boring  
They're defecting  
Just like all the others  
They're expecting  
Us to be impressed with what they're done here  
But they  
Haven't stopped to think about the paper work  
Their gesture causes  
We've a whole great school to run here  
If these people can't strike  
Blows for freedom  
With the Sorting Hat on  
We don't need 'em  
If we seem offhand then please remember  
This is nothing very special  
It's the fourth we've had since last November  
Who do these pure-blood chappies think they are?"

Hermione flinched in distaste, the words "I'm Muggle-born, thank you very much," already forming on her lips, but she stopped when she felt Draco next to her flinch just the same way.

"It's not about blood," he said defensively.

Longbottom turned her piercing gaze to them again.

"So what House do you want to go to?" she asked instead, not elaborating on the blood subject, for which Hermione was secretly grateful.

"Ravenclaw," Draco answered bravely, happy that things were finally moving forward.

Longbottom nodded solemnly, as if confirming something she had suspected long ago. She gave the two students another glare, then sharply turned her back on them, and continued her rant.

"And when he's safe in Ravenclaw  
They'll be the heroes at the school  
The professors will lionise them  
Fame and fortune too  
No one knows it's us the thanks goes to!"

Malfoy and Hermione exchanged a confused look, trying to find out whether the other thought the old woman was a bit crazy, too. Unnoticed by all three occupants of the room, McGonagall entered at that moment and stood by the door, watching the scene.

Suddenly Mrs. Longbottom grabbed a file from the desk, rounding up on Malfoy.

"This is just something my grandson gave me," she said easily, but Hermione could see in her eyes the look that Neville had done anything but cooperated with her peacefully, and she felt happy at his bravery to stand up against his grandmother like that.

The woman flipped through the pages with one hand.

"You have a girlfriend?" she asked Malfoy, obviously knowing the answer already.

"Yes," Draco replied simply, earning an encouraging squeeze of hand from Hermione.

"You have two cronies?" Longbottom asked again, this time a smirk almost visible on her features.

"Yes," Malfoy pressed out, almost shaking with rage.

"And they're not coming with you?" Longbottom asked, feigning mild surprise.

"No, not for the moment," Draco retorted, trying to keep himself from shouting and throwing things.

"You play chess?  
You are good at it?  
Oh, yes, it says here that you are Hogwarts' champion."

"Since yesterday," Draco answered, still doing his best to stay polite and not ruin his chances of changing House.

"That's still good," Longbottom sneered, and heat flushed up on Malfoy's cheeks.

"Mrs. Longbottom, you are dealing with a major high-class figure here. May I —" McGonagall suddenly said, in time to prevent Malfoy from starting to thrash her things.

"Are you changing house too, ma'am?" Longbottom asked with sarcasm, which unfortunately went unnoticed by the three fuming people in the office.

"No!" McGonagall almost screamed. She took a few calming breaths, and then continued.

"This man was a student of Slytherin House  
I am the Head of Gryffindor House  
And by the authority of this board  
And as the school's Headmistress  
I demand that you give this man your immediate attention!" she said as authoritatively as she could manage. After a moment of thought, though, she added, "And this woman, too."

With this she turned around and left the room, probably to find some bottle of unused alcohol to calm herself down.

Mrs. Longbottom gave the students an almost evil smile now, before clutching her handbag to her chest, and asking,

"Have you an appointment with the goblins?  
If you don't you cannot change the Houses  
See, it takes some money. With respect it buggers  
Up our non-existent, null funds  
Pushing peace and understanding  
Let us hope you can afford it.  
Far too many jokers  
Change their houses  
Not a single Knut to  
Sponsorise this  
Slytherin must be empty  
Though we're all for  
Basic wizard rights it makes you wonder  
What they built their common-room for  
Who do these pure-blood chappies think they are?"

She took a moment to shuffle through her bag, pulled out a stack of parchment, doubled it with a quick duplicating charm, and threw them over the table to the students.

"Take those, and leave. Owl them to the Board as an official application. And don't forget what I said about… you know." And she waved them off.

Already at the door, they were stopped by the voice of Mrs. Longbottom, once more, this time warning them.

"And when you've filled in all the forms  
And been passed clear of all disease  
Debriefed, debugged, de-drugged, disarmed  
And disinfected please  
Don't forget the board  
Who controls your leaves!"

"All that for a measly seven months?" Hermione asked in a breath after closing the door behind her back. "I'll never let you live it down!"

Malfoy smiled apologetically, but then turned it into a smirk.

"So you decided you weren't that much of a Gryffindor," he teased her, earning a playful slap.

"Have you got a quill with you?" was all she said, eyeing the enormous amount of forms in her hand.


	19. Heaven Help My Heart

**Note: **This is Larix' favourite song, but I think I like "I know him so well" more. :) Enjoy the chapter!

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**Chess**

** Heaven Help My Heart**

It was a very good thing that the Ravenclaw House was situated in a tower. This way, as Hermione stood by the window and gazed out into the darkness, she could pretend she was still in Gryffindor.

It wasn't that she regretted her choice, as surprising as it might be, thinking back to her initial reluctance to changing houses. When it came to NEWTs and studying, Ravenclaw was the best place to be. Where Gryffindors would have sat before the fireplace and moaned about their homework, Ravenclaws sat before the fireplace and moaned about their lack of homework. All right, perhaps not quite like that, but they were prone to study and discuss interesting theories about this or that they had picked up during the lessons or from some book. For Hermione it was pure joy to be studying with people who not only appreciated her thirst for knowledge, but were just like that themselves.

Acceptance and friends, a matter she had worried about, turned out to be a lot easier in reality. Draco, the Hogwarts Champion of Chess was welcomed with open arms and smiling faces (which meant he sometimes had to take cover from people who were too nice to him), and once Hermione had opened her mouth (and talked for three hours about the impact of one's mood to performing charms) , she was as good as a born Ravenclaw.

Even Terry Boot had warmed up towards her and apologized profusely, and after receiving her forgiveness, they had become good friends.

Yet making new friends and enjoying the pure joy of studying with them didn't take her mind off her old friends, those who had thrown disgusted glances her way whenever she had even mentioned homework, and later had pleaded on their knees to let them borrow her notes.

Now that she was officially in Ravenclaw, her Gryffindor friends chose to mostly ignore her. They had less lessons together, they ate at different tables, they slept in different towers. And even though she greeted them whenever they met in the hallways, and even though they sometimes nodded back to her, that was the full extent of their relationship.

And she missed them terribly.

Then of course there was Draco. They were friends, and yet at the same time they weren't. It was hard to explain, and she had trouble understanding it herself. Sometimes they would talk, about schoolwork or other matters, and then he would raise his eyes and give her a look that would make shivers run down her spine. The good kind of shivers. But then he would look away again, and she would wonder whether it had all been only in her mind.

As awful as not knowing what his feelings for her really were, what horrified Hermione a lot more were **her** feelings for him, and the fact that she knew exactly what they were.

Standing alone in the empty common room and staring at the reflection of the dying embers on the window glass, she heaved a heavy sigh.

"If it were love I would give that love every second I had  
And I do  
Do I know where he'll lead me to?  
Did I plan  
Doing all of this for the love of a man?"

No, she hadn't planned this. What's more, if someone had told her some time ago that she would be spending the last seven months of her seventh year in Ravenclaw pining for Malfoy (who also happened to be in Ravenclaw), she would have found it utterly ludicrous (and sent that person to Madam Pomfrey right away). But here she was now – alone in the darkness, singing about her unrequited love for Malfoy. It would have been so ridiculous, if it weren't so serious.

"Well I let it happen anyhow  
And what I'm feeling now  
Has no easy explanation, reason plays no part."

Hermione had no idea how these feelings had come to be. There had been the time when he had promised to win the game for her, and she had been so happy when he did. Then there was the time he had kissed her in front of the whole Hogwarts, and she had forgotten all about those hundreds of pairs of eyes watching them. She remembered the disappointment and hurt when he had called her just a friend, and the jolts of pleasure and excitement whenever he looked at her as if she was everything he would ever want.

But she remembered the moment she had realized that she loved him. It was the day they stepped through the window hole into the Ravenclaw common room, but this time not as a player and a second, but as two members of that house. She had squeezed his hand reassuringly a moment before, and when they stepped in he had turned towards her and smiled a smile that had lit up his whole face and brought a merry twinkle into his eyes. She had gasped, and almost spoken out her feelings in front of all the people in the common room, but fortunately Terry had chosen that exact moment to notice and greet them, thus saving her from the embarrassment, and making her realize he might not be that bad at all.

"Heaven help my heart  
I love him too much  
What if he saw my whole existence  
Turning around a word, a smile, a touch?"

Because Terry was not always around to save her, and even if she managed to keep her mouth shut about her feelings, she was not accustomed to hide them, and as Padma had very kindly told her on her first night in the Ravenclaw girls' dormitory, it was practically written on her forehead. And although Malfoy could be many things (including the love of her life), he was not stupid.

"One of these days, and it won't be long, he'll know more about me  
Than he should  
All my dreams will be understood  
No surprise  
Nothing more to learn from the look in my eyes."

Or perhaps he already knew, but for some reason or other never mentioned it. Perhaps he did not want to break her heart, which sometimes felt so close to shattering into millions of tiny pieces, or maybe he was just playing with her, giving her false hope, waiting for her confession to then sneer at her and tell that he could never love a Mudblood like her.

No, she didn't want to believe that of him. He had changed, and anyone could see that, provided they looked. The Ravenclaws had noticed, thus them being so nice to him that he sometimes couldn't bear it. No. If he had still been what he was before, he would have never spent those days during the tournament in an unused classroom instead of his own comfortable bed, and he would have never abandoned Slytherin and brought the wrath of his former housemates upon himself.

Now they considered him a despicable traitor and a worthless renegade. The fact that he had kissed and was now friends with a filthy ex-Gryffindor Mudblood didn't help him win back their respect. Even Snape was a bit cold towards him, although those 12,000 housepoints he had won them had put him into a mood so great that he had decided it was time to loosen up towards the Gryffindors (because it was fun to give them a few points and then remark casually that they had no chance whatsoever to win the House Cup), but to maintain his evil reputation he had chosen to torture the Ravenclaws instead.

Whereas Hermione found it most unfair and felt a bit guilty to cause such undeserved misfortune to the poor Ravenclaws, Draco merely smirked whenever Snape took away any points from him, as well as whenever any of his old housemates tried to curse him in the hallways.

He always said good riddance whenever she dared to bring it up with him, but she could see he wasn't that indifferent about the whole deal.

"Why do I need them when I've got you," he had once said, making her blush furiously for the next fifteen minutes.

"Though I know that time is not my friend..."

The Christmas Holidays were to begin in only a couple of days, and she wondered whether she would be able to survive all that time without him. It wasn't that she wanted things to remain just the way they were right now because she wasn't in a very happy place at the moment, but she feared that the small chance to be together they had now would fade to nothing either over the holidays or after graduation.

"I'll fight it to the end  
Hoping to keep that best of moments  
When the passions start  
Heaven help my heart  
The day that I find  
Suddenly I've run out of secrets  
Suddenly I'm not always on his mind."

The practical girl that she was, and bearing in mind what had happened with Ron, Hermione didn't believe in happily ever after. But she believed in happily for a while, and beautiful memories for later on. Whenever she started to miss her old friends too much, she recalled all the things they had done together, all the great times they had had, and it made it a lot easier.

"Maybe it's best to love a stranger  
Well that's what I've done - heaven help my heart."

A stranger no more, her heart was telling her. With all the time they had spent together, with all the stories they had told each other about their lives, it felt like she knew him better than anyone else, and vice versa. Yet, he did have his secrets and mysteries, and she didn't really mind.

Outside the window snowflakes had started to fall. Ever since the end of the tournament, the unusually cold weather had withdrawn, and instead of the biting frost it was now perfect for all kinds of winter fun. This reminded her of the snowball fight she had had with Draco the very same day, which had ended up with the two of them rolling around in the snow, and a delicious cup of hot cocoa later on.

With another sigh she opened the window, and catching a few snowflakes on her palm, she watched them melt.

"Heaven help my heart," she whispered to the swirl of whiteness in the dark night.


	20. Anthem

**Huge thanks to all our - past, present, and future - readers and reviewers!****  
**

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**Chess**

**Anthem**

"Good morning!" Hermione chirped in an unnaturally good mood on the first morning of the Christmas holidays. Most of the students had left for their homes by the evening train the previous night, and there were considerably fewer books around the common room now than there usually were. Hermione was lying on her stomach on a sofa in the common room, one leather-bound tome placed on the floor in front of her, and straining her neck to look up to Draco as he descended the stairs from the boys dormitories, growling.

"I'm not going," he simply said, stopping in front of Hermione and carefully brushing his woolly sock over the page of the book.

It was early in the morning and the sun had yet to rise, and though the two concealed their amusement well, they were surprised to see the other awake that early during the holiday. Draco, not having known Hermione for a very long period of time, had always considered her more of an evening person, mainly basing his assumptions on the fact that were she awake early in the mornings she would have time to take more care of her appearance and make her hair look a bit more presentable. Hermione, meanwhile, had always been judging Draco by the stereotype of a spoilt single child, and therefore it had never even occurred to her that he might like early mornings.

"You have no choice," Hermione replied in the same artificially cheerful voice she had used earlier. "And don't do that; I need to finish this book before I start studying for the NEWTs, and so do you."

"But I don't want to go!" he whined. "And what is it? Is it interesting? And why do I have to read it?"

"Do you want her to come and pick you up from here?" Hermione said, sitting up on the sofa and massaging her neck. "And it's the official book of Ravenclaw, written by Rowena herself, and every student of this house has to read it."

"So, what's it about?" Draco asked, handing Hermione the book she had left on the floor, and sitting down next to her.

"How could I tell you that? Besides, are you packed already?"

"Of course you can tell me! Then I wouldn't have to read it; it seems abnormally long."

"What?" Hermione asked him, surprise evident even in the strained mock happiness of her voice. "You're saying you did no research on the House you changed into? You're saying you know nothing about Rowena's Book of Truths? I'm sure even Harry knows!"

"Well, that would probably be due to the fact that he dated that Chang girl, wouldn't it?" Draco asked sourly.

"Are you jealous?" Hermione asked with a grin, trying to subdue the urge to strangle Malfoy should he show any amicable feelings towards Cho or any other women. But her self control was perfect and the act she was putting up was flawless.

But that was all it was — an act. Last night, staring out of the window as she had done every single evening since becoming a Ravenclaw, she had made a resolution. Not a New Year resolution, there was still a lot of time before the start of the next year, and not even a Christmas Resolution because that would mean wasting a couple of perfectly fine days.

In her mind she called it a Christmas Holiday resolution, and the main goal behind that resolution was to persuade Draco to stay with her over the holidays.

And that's why she smiled adorably when Draco blushed at her jibe, and then pointed towards a desk by the windows.

"You left your Transfiguration book there yesterday, if I remember correctly. You should go and put it in your trunk lest you forget it here."

"I told you already — I'm not going!" he almost shouted, making Hermione infernally jump with glee, though on the outside she presented a look of surprise and confusion.

"But you promised her," she said, tilting her head in a way that the rising sun lighted her face and gave her an excuse for batting her eyelashes in a way that anyone watching would have instantly classified as unabashed flirting. Thankfully there was no one else in the common room, and Draco was too occupied with staring at her with wide craving eyes to notice anything.

"But… that was… before…" Draco finally said, turning away from Hermione and catching a look out of the window instead. "We'd better get down for breakfast," he changed the subject.

"Yes," Hermione agreed with him, the blank smile back on her features, "so you can tell her what time you'll be there."

"I'm not going! I never want to see that part of the castle again!"

It had been the first almost-fight between the two when Malfoy had told her he had promised Pansy to spend the Christmas Holidays with her in the Slytherin dungeons. After Draco's defecting to Ravenclaw, Parkinson had taken the matters to her hands, and quickly organised everything so that all other Slytherin students besides her would be leaving Hogwarts for that time. Hermione had been painfully polite towards her ever since she found out.

"Ah, Pansy!" she greeted with a bright smile when stepping into the Great Hall. The Slytherin girl was the only person there at that hour, and the look she gave Hermione spoke plainly of detestation and nothing else. Draco quickly sat down at the Ravenclaw table, turning his back towards Parkinson, and tried to ignore the presence of both women.

Hermione, though, had plans of her own.

"Dear Draco here said he'll take his suitcase down to the dungeons right after the breakfast," she chirped happily, and a glint of confusion flashed over Pansy's face. "Didn't you, Draco?"

"Shut up," Draco hissed silently, concentrating his eyes hard on his tomato to block the women out.

"Really?" Pansy asked.

"He said he was not going to take his books with him because he wants to do other things with you," Hermione said lightly, beaming at Pansy.

A knife was struck right through the heart of an unsuspecting tomato with such force that the table trembled.

"I said, shut up," he hissed more forcefully.

"But why is he then having you talk for him?" Pansy asked with a superior gaze, horror reflecting in her eyes as she understood what Hermione was playing at. She could almost see Draco melting in the presence of Hermione, and she knew she had to do something to stop the other girl's devilish plan.

"Oh, he's probably just shy," Hermione commented, sitting finally down next to Malfoy and patting him on a shoulder. "Aren't you, my boy?"

"Or maybe he's just not wizard enough?" Pansy asked, obviously striking a nerve in Malfoy for the tomato now looked more like ketchup. "First he left Slytherin because he was a coward, and now he lets a _girl_ talk for him."

"**I** don't think he's a coward," Hermione said, a proud smile caressing her face, as if she was a mother speaking about her first-born child after finding him hiding under the bed. "**I** think that he knows perfectly well that if he comes to _your_ common room for this holiday he's giving in to the pressure that Snape has been putting on him all the while, and I think that he's really courageous not to make a point of it."

Hermione beamed when she saw Draco biting his lip and Pansy looking defeated. She grabbed a spoon and took a mouthful of the mashed tomato on Draco's plate, murmuring, "Mmm, wonderful breakfast," in a voice that suggested she was talking about something completely different. Draco bleached when he felt a strand of Hermione's hair brush against his cheek.

"So you really are coming?" Pansy asked suddenly in a wavering voice. "I think I should thank you for that."

Draco opened his mouth to answer, but Hermione beat him to it.

"Well, he did promise, didn't he? And my Draco never breaks his promises."

"SHUT UP!" Draco bellowed, making the happily humming professor Dumbledore in his portrait cough in surprise.

Draco jumped up from his chair and walked to the Slytherin table in an even stride.

"You say I'm not wizard enough? You say that leaving Slytherin means leaving behind all wizard pride?

"No man, no madness  
Though their sad power may prevail  
Can possess, conquer my wizard heart  
They rise to fail  
Wizardry's eternal  
Long before Hogwarts School was born  
When no spells flew, when no potions boiled  
This race was born."

He was bowing close to Pansy, almost as if he was about to kiss her, but they both knew that he had no intention to do so. Hermione sat at the Ravenclaw table, feeling immensely happy that Draco had finally answered to her provocation, yet a bit sorry for the Slytherin girl whom she had torn into it.

"And you ask me why I love her," Draco continued his praise to wizardry,  
"Through wars, death and despair  
She is the constant, we who don't care  
And you say I have left her — but how?  
I cross between dorm rooms but I'm still wizard now!"

"I'm sorry," Pansy whispered, and, seeing professor McGonagall entering the Great Hall, quickly spoke up. "Professor, could I please use your fireplace to floo home for Christmas?"

Professor McGonagall let her strict gaze slide over the scene in the Great Hall, and seeing that Malfoy was just straightening up from a kiss to his girlfriend, and that Hermione wasn't feeling one bit down because of it, she nodded happily.

"After the breakfast have your trunk ready at the entrance to my office," she replied with a brisk smile.

A few minutes after that Pansy left the Great Hall, and soon other students started to file in for breakfast. Draco left soon after, having given Hermione no glance after the incident with Pansy. Terry Boot slumped down next to Hermione with a sleepy "You're early!" and leaned his elbows on the table to support his head from dropping into his plate. Hermione could feel the accusing eyes of Dumbledore on the back of her head; all in all it had started off as a perfectly good plan to make Draco finally say out the words she so desperately wanted him to say. It wasn't her fault she had gotten carried away with her act and hurt Pansy and made Malfoy angry. It wasn't her fault!

Or was it?

She had meant for Pansy to go away for the Holidays angry with Hermione, not looking this sad and broken. And she hadn't meant for Draco to get angry with her — he was supposed to embrace her and hug her and kiss her and give her the best Christmas present she would ever get. He wasn't supposed to walk out of the Great Hall and leave her alone with Terry Boot next to her sleeping over his bowl of porridge.

And Dumbledore wasn't supposed to look at her in this way, making her feel as if he thought she was an insensitive manipulative bitch. Though she knew she was just that.

With a cry of anguish Hermione finally jumped up from the bench, and when Terry still slept on without noticing her despair, she nudged his hand, so that his head dropped right into his porridge, and left before the poor Prefect could understand why it was so difficult to breathe.

She made her way straight to the Ravenclaw Tower, feeling much better now — the little things like seeing stuck-up dunderheads suck porridge in through their nose always tends to lift one's mood. But when Hermione reached the tower her better humour vanished almost instantly because there was absolutely no sight of Draco anywhere. She even ran up to the boys' seventh year dormitories, only to find a half-dressed Michael Corner there, but before leaving the room hastily she managed to notice that Draco's suitcase had disappeared from it's original spot at the foot of his bed.

Hermione quickly let the words she had heard Malfoy say to Pansy through her mind, and began to wonder if Draco had actually meant what she had first thought he had meant by them. She saw there were two options — he could have implied that he was still a wizard though he had given up his thoughts on pureblood supremacy, but it could just as well have meant that he was still the same person he had been before, though he now shared a common room with different people.

And as this idea crossed her mind, Hermione sprinted towards McGonagall's office as fast as her legs carried her.

She shouted the password half way down the corridor, and pressed herself past the gargoyle before it had managed to free the way to the stairs. But when she reached the Headmistress' office there was no one there but the portraits of dead Headmasters; no sight of Parkinson, McGonagall, or Malfoy.

It was in a much more reserved and slower way that Hermione walked back towards the Ravenclaw Tower with every intention to take the Book of Ravenclaw down to the library and spend the entire holiday there, reading it. When she climbed in through the Window Hole she came face to face with a totally bewildered Terry who had a clump of dried porridge dangling in his hair.

"Hermione! Can you imagine it! I really didn't believe in dreams before, but today I had a dream that I went down to breakfast and sat down next to you, and then I woke up with my head in my favourite, oatmeal porridge! Isn't it wonderful! I really should have taken Divination instead of this rubbish Arithmancy!" he exclaimed, beaming all over.

Hermione took the Book of Truths from the sofa that Malfoy had left it on earlier in the morning, and made to leave without answering anything to Terry.

"You know what Mickey said? That he slept in and when he was still only in his boxers and with his shirt drawn over his face, some girl walked into our dorm and saw him like that! Wonder who this bird was; probably Lisa, she's been circling around him ever since Cho graduated last year!"

Hermione leaned the heavy book carefully on her hip and supported it with only one hand, using the other to push the Window Hole open. In her opinion it was pure genius to use a window as the passage to the common room because this way they could always see if there was someone outside their common room who shouldn't know about it's exact location. But now she was just frustrated that she couldn't thrust it open with her foot, because the book was really heavy and Terry was showing no intention to help her.

"Did you already hear the rumour about Malfoy? I heard the forth years Stewart and Orla saying that he went back to Slytherin, but Loony said that he only moved into their common room for the Holidays because he had a fight with you! She's really off the rocker, isn't she?"

But Hermione didn't hear that, she had already run out of the common room, the old and respectable Book of Truths lying forgotten on the floor besides the Window Hole.

A moment later Hermione found herself in the lowest dungeon facing the bare wall that was the entrance to the Slytherin common room. As the Head Girl she knew all passwords in the school, but she had to catch her breath first to pronounce the words.

"Traitor Malfoy," she finally panted to the wall, and it soundlessly slid open.

She saw Malfoy with the very first glance she shot into the room. He was sitting on a soft armchair with his back towards the entrance, and staring into a solitary fire burning in a robust-looking fireplace. That was the only source of light in the room — there were no windows, no candles, no lamps, and no other fireplaces.

Draco didn't notice her coming. He was staring in front of him, and talking to himself.

"How can I leave her?" Draco despaired, and Hermione wondered who he was talking about.

"Where should I start?" Draco continued, his voice even more strained now. Hermione noticed that his suitcase was still at the entrance and he hadn't yet taken it into any of the dormitories.

"Let man's petty egos tear themselves apart  
But I still have love concealed inside my heart," Draco said forcefully, heaving himself up from the armchair.

Hermione felt tears spring into her eyes, but before she could do anything about them Draco had turned around and noticed her.

"Hey," Hermione whispered to the dark shape of Malfoy drawing out against the flickering flames in the fireplace.

"Hey," Malfoy answered carefully. Hermione couldn't see his face, but she imagined him blushing when he understood that she had heard his monologue.

"I was just about to come back up to the Tower," he said, not moving a step from where he had stopped when spotting her.

"Oh," Hermione replied.

They both stood motionlessly in silence for a moment.

"I'm sorry!" Hermione suddenly said, at the same moment that Draco exclaimed, "I apologise, okay?"

Both snorted, and then stood in silence again.

"So, let's go back?" Draco asked, but Hermione had chosen the very moment to say, "So, going to stay here?"

Silence reigned again for some moments.

"I—" they started again together, but this time Hermione couldn't take it any more and flung herself at Malfoy, toppling them both over onto the floor, Draco's blond head barely missing the hard stone of the fireplace.

"I'm sorry I was insensitive and manipulative and a bitch! I just thought it was the best way to… or rather the only way to… I'm sorry I used Pansy and didn't think about anyone else's feelings, but all in all it's only natural that first and foremost I'm on nobody's side but my own, but I really didn't want to hurt you, or Pansy, or anyone actually, not even Terry! And…"

"I love you," Draco whispered into her ear, hugging her firmly to him, and trying not to let it disturb him that there was something really uncomfortable protruding from the smooth floor of the common room; probably one of his shoes.

"And I didn't want to make Pansy so unhappy, I just wanted her to leave Hogwarts, because I just wanted you to understand that I wanted you to stay with me over the Christmas, but I suppose it was still absolutely insensitive of me to behave that way. And…"

"And I love you," Draco repeated with a little more conviction in his voice.

"And I know it was absolutely inhuman of me to make Terry fall into his porridge, but I just couldn't he— what did you say?" Hermione finally felt Draco's breath on her neck and his arms around her waist. She raised herself partially off him to get a clear view of his face.

"I said I love you. I said from now on I'll give you every second I have. I said I'll never let you be anyone else's know-it-all. And I asked if you really made Boot drop his head into his porridge?"

"I did," Hermione said with a chuckle, climbing up into the armchair, and dragging Draco after her. "But I actually think that I'd like being your know-it-all much better than being anyone else's."

"I'm glad to hear that."

They let the warmth from the fireplace engulf them as they clung to each other, huddled up in the armchair, paying no attention to the hissing half-Dracos wriggling their forked tongues at whimpering half-Rons. They didn't know how quickly time passed or whether it passed at all because it made no difference whatsoever.

"Should we be going back?" Draco asked at one moment.

"No. I'd rather avoid Terry right now. And Michael. And Luna, too, just in case."

"Alright."

And they didn't move for some more time. They just listened to the fire cracking and imagined the snow falling outside, and imagined a colourful sunset behind the clouds they thought were covering the sky.

"I suppose we've missed the lunch," Hermione said at one time.

"I suppose we have," Draco answered.

"Are we going to miss the dinner as well?"

"I think I have some lemon drops in the suitcase, around nine hundred and twenty packages, if I remember correctly."

"Your suitcase is too far. But I have one half-empty package in my pocket," Hermione replied without raising her glance from the dancing flames.

"That will have to do for today, I suppose."

"Yeah, I suppose that's enough."

And they watched the sun set behind the mountains, gilding over the high Astronomy Tower, and painting the Hogwarts Lake in dark hues, lemon drops in their mouths.

THE END

* * *

**Note: **Ah, I simply adore this chapter. I asked Larix to give me some riding-into-sunset romance and she managed it a lot better than I could have guessed. Also, she got me obsessed with a porridge-covered Terry, whom I started to use in my stories and begged Larix to use in hers. What else? This is not really the end, as you might know. There will be Act 2, too, but we haven't written that yet. But we are going to do it. One day. Until then, stay well, read_ Deathly Hallows_ and, why not, eat some porridge. :P 

ooo

Cheers,  
Fagus Sylvatica of TwoTrees


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